After a car accident, when all the emotional shock and the adrenaline rush is gone, the money will probably be the next at the forefront of any victim’s mind. After all, even if their injuries were minor, they’re going to be dealing with medical bills, car repairs, missing work and not making money, and other disruption to their personal and professional life. If you have never been in this kind of situation before, you may have no idea what to expect or how much money you are entitled to. That’s why it is strongly advised to hire a professional lawyer to help you get through this situation and get the most out of it.
How do car accident settlements work?
If you were involved in a car crash and are injured, and most importantly, someone else is at fault, you may be entitled to compensation. For a driver to be found at fault, their actions must have been negligent in some way. To settle, the injured person has to either file a personal injury suit against the other driver or file a claim with the driver’s insurance company. The case can be either settled out of court or filing a lawsuit and getting the case into the courtroom. Regarding this, the amount of time and money spent on the case varies and before starting the whole process that can be quite long and tiring make sure to gather all of your medical bills and records.
What are the average personal settlements for a car accident?
Generally, average personal injury settlement amounts vary greatly depending on so many different factors that will be discussed later. But to get you something to wrap your mind around, let’s say that, typically, on the lower end of the scale, an injury case might settle anywhere between $3,000 and $75,000. The majority of the car accident injury settlements get somewhere between the higher and lower end of the average settlements. As mentioned, the amount of settlement varies depending on the severity of injuries sustained in the accidents, with extremely serious cases that involve death, paralysis, or complicated and very costly surgeries. In this case, the settlement amount can go as high as 1 million dollars.
How do you determine your injury settlement amounts?
To roughly determine the amounts of a given personal injury settlement, you will find that the value of a money settlement consists of important factors. This includes various economic and non-economic damages, such as medical bills, damage to your vehicle or other property, missed work, pain, and suffering, which can be both physical and mental/emotional.
Besides this, if you have a reason to believe this is the case, you may be able to recover punitive damages. These kinds of damages punish the defendant for wrongdoing, for example, drunk driving and sleeping behind the wheel. If awarded by a Jury, according to the experts at StokesStemle.com, punitive damages can greatly increase the overall compensation to an injured driver and other passengers involved. The essential element in this part of the process is to have an experienced attorney to point this one out and work hard to find strong evidence to support this case.
What factors affect the amount of the settlement?
As mentioned, the nature of the injuries sustained in an accident includes:
the length of hospital time
cognitive, physical, and behavioral impairments
the time needed for recovery
types of rehabilitative therapy required
permanent disability or scarring
emotional impact
Besides the above-mentioned, there is another aspect that gets into the calculus that might not be much favorable.
The thing to keep in mind is that the typical settlement heavily depends on the (at-fault) driver’s ability to pay for the value of your injuries or damages, based on his insurance policy. That means that, for example, if you have a claim worth $50,000. But, the at-fault driver has an insurance policy with a $40,000 limit. He might not have the assets to pay you the difference. You can sue him personally, but most of the time, it is not worth it, and therefore, the attorneys would usually recommend taking the $40,000.
It is quite important to understand that when you take a look at the different statistics on money settlements of other injury cases, you are looking at many completely different cases. Some of it may resemble your own case, but none of it can ever be the same, and there is no calculator for these things. What you can do, however, is to keep in mind to take into consideration all of the factors explained above, and work thoroughly and negotiate smartly through each step of the claim with a help of a trustful and capable legal representative.