subject: What's My Personal Injury Case Worth [print this page] The short answer is there is no exact formula for calculating the amount of damages. However, there are certain criteria that are used by the insurance company to place a monetary value on your injury.
If a person who suffers an injury or loses his life didn't work, or had no prospects of working, a smaller value will be placed on their damage claims. The same is true of someone who worked very hard every day, but they didn't earn much money. Perhaps they were not well educated, or maybe they were older and had suffered the effects of age discrimination in the workplace.
However, there is still an economic value is someone is not getting paid for their "job", such as a stay at home mom. Or perhaps they were contributing significantly to society by working for a charity or by doing other volunteer work, so they were not earning any money.
In many cases, the settlement of a claim for an injury or death, is determined in large part by the amount of lost earnings that can be calculated. There are other considerations when placing a value on an injury or the loss of a loved one. How much pain and suffering did an injured person go through, or how much did a person suffer before he died? Is the pain and suffering a thing of the past, or will it continue into the future? Will there be future medical expenses?
The answers to questions like these have a significant impact on the value of an injury or death claim, whether it is resolved through settlement or through trial. A personal injury lawyer can work with your doctors to help address these issues and ensure that they are appropriately considered by the insurance company.
How much someone really suffered may not have as much influence on a settlement offer or a judgment as one might think. Not everyone is able to adequately describe their pain in a way that will relate with a jury. And the insurance company is likely to use some kind of formula to decide how much to offer the injured.
The insurance company will assign a value to a claim based on its own assessment of how a loss should be valued. Most of the time the insurance company will factor in the amount of medical bills, and sometimes the insurance company may use a multiple of the medical bills as a way to calculate and offer a settlement for pain and suffering.
This multiplier can also be used in relation the length or treatment or type of injury. If the injury is something that was treated and the injured person made a full recovery then the multiple goes down. If the injury will require continuing treatment or the injured person will not fully recover the multiplier will go up.
Other factors like the age, occupation, health, family, career, can affect the value that an insurance company or a jury will place on a personal injury claim. Also the degree of negligence can effect the settlement or award.
An experienced personal injury lawyer is essential when it comes to placing a realistic value on an injury claim or a death claim. There is always a risk when you go to jury trial and an experienced attorney can help determine whether you should except or reject an offer.
by: David Rosenbaum
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
