WHAT IS THE VALUE OF YOUR ACCIDENT CLAIM?

Accidents not only alter your personal life, but they also alter your financial well-being. It doesn’t take long for the bills to mount up. If you require surgery or cannot perform your existing job duties, you must take time off from work to recuperate. You need to pay your medical costs. As a result of your injuries, you may need to make certain adjustments to your house.

An injury claim might provide you with the financial flexibility and resources you need to deal with the new problems in your life. It’s impossible to tell precisely what your insurance provider will give you until you make a claim. Until you’ve gone through the claims process, you may not know what the outcome will be between you and the insurer.

It’s important to know who was responsible for your accident.

When establishing the value of your claim, it is critical to know who or what caused your accident. To better understand what you might anticipate from your claim, you need to know who is liable for the accident. These are some of the possible outcomes:

When you and the personal car driver were involved in an accident, you both sustained injuries. No additional variables contributed to the collision, and the motorist was only insured to the absolute minimum required by law.

Only $10,000 of property damage and $10,000 of personal injury coverage are required in Colorado for a motorist to hold a policy. There may be a limit of $20,000 in personal injury coverage if more than two persons are injured in the car collision.

A car collision involving a semi-truck resulted in your injuries. The driver failed to see your car in his blind area after being on the road for many hours of an eleven-hour shift. Insurance premiums for commercial truck drivers are often greater than those for drivers of passenger cars.

A fleet’s insurance coverage may extend to all of its drivers, increasing your compensation in the event of an accident.

A drunk driver caused a collision that resulted in you being injured. That motorist went to a pub and told the bartender that he intended to get back in his car and drive across town an hour after he had finished drinking.

He drank during his stay at the bar, and the staff served him even though they knew he was about to go behind the wheel. Consequently, not only does the intoxicated driver face accountability for your accident but the establishment that over-served that motorist may share blame for your damages.

 

After a tire blowout, you were involved in an car accident with a passenger car and sustained injuries. In the days after the tire was installed, the motorist had done nothing to raise his or her chances of an accident.

Due to a manufacturing error, the tire blew out. No action has been taken by the manufacturer to recall the tires affected by the fault. If the tire manufacturer is responsible for the   accident, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries.

In a straightforward accident, there may be a single party that bears all responsibility for the occurrence and, thus, any resulting injuries. The insurance provider for the person or business usually takes on the financial burden of making the payment.

Some circumstances, on the other hand, may not have clear-cut responsibility. If the accident was caused by more than one person or entity, you might be able to recover damages from each of them individually.

WHAT KIND OF INJURIES HAVE YOU SUFFERED?

To get compensation for an accident-related injury, you must be hurt. A personal injury claim may be filed even if you only sustain a small injury. For injuries that cost more to treat and have a greater impact on your life, you might expect to get more compensation.

YOUR PERSONAL INJURY CLAIM’S ELEMENTS

Personal injury claims involve several important details. No matter what you put in your submission, you will not get paid. With these components included, you may show the insurance company or a judge what your accident has cost you in terms of financial hardship.

COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH HEALTH CARE

Medical bills may pile up quickly after a traumatic injury, often much quicker than you expect. Be sure to keep track of all your medical costs if you’ve been injured in an accident, even if the person who caused it has just basic insurance.

Ambulance transportation to the hospital from the scene of the accident Treatment in the emergency room

X-rays and scans, including both immediate and follow-up scans following your injuries A hospital stay

A stay in a rehabilitation facility if needed

Psychological therapy, including therapy to help with PTSD after an accident or therapy that helps you cope with the psychological impact of lifelong injuries

Physic therapy

If you’ve been injured, you may benefit from occupational therapy to help you regain your strength and function.

Additionally, you may need to make modifications to your house or car due to the injuries you sustained in the accident. It’s very uncommon for persons with disabilities who need wheelchair access to necessitate the usage of an accessible car.

Specialized cars may be required for those who are unable to use their feet to drive. An accident that results in long-term disabilities may need the installation of wheelchair ramps, walk-in showers, grab bars, and larger entrances in your house.

LOST WAGES

The majority of accidents result in injuries that prohibit sufferers from returning to their jobs right away. It doesn’t matter what profession you have; if you are hurt badly, you may have to take time off to heal. Occupation-related injuries might also severely limit your daily activities. A catastrophic brain injury, for example, may prevent you from returning to a creative career until your brain has had time to recover. Broken limbs may keep you out of work for a while if you work in construction or another physically demanding job.

While returning to work as soon as possible after an accident may be possible, you may have to miss a lot of time for appointments and rehabilitation. You may be unable to return to work for days or weeks at a time if you have further procedures throughout your recovery.

Although some companies provide sick time that may help you make up for a missed time, you will no longer be able to utilize that sick time for other reasons, such as family diseases. In an hourly job, you may not have a lot of sick leave to work with.

POTENTIAL EARNINGS SQUANDERED

A spinal cord injury sufferer may not return to manufacturing work that needs a lot of heavy lifting, for example, because of their impairments. While you’re healing from your injuries, you may be eligible to get financial assistance via a claim for lost earning potential.

Additionally, you may use those cash to pay for the training you’ll need to get a job in a new field. For those who have been severely injured, a claim for lost earning potential might offer you the time needed to consider your options for the future.

DISTRESS AND ANGUISH

You cannot lead the high-quality life you had before your injuries due to the significant pain and suffering they have caused you. After an accident, you may suffer in several ways, including physical agony that might last a lifetime and mental anguish.

Events that were not attended

You should consider putting them on hold when you can no longer participate in the things you used to love because of your ailments.

Traumatic brain injury alters one’s connections with close friends and family. Trauma from the accident or your injuries might cause emotional distress.

It is possible to better understand the effect of your injury and how pain and suffering should be included in your claim by speaking with an attorney. The expense of your medical treatment is often used as a basis for calculating pain and suffering.

Pain and suffering may have a greater influence on your life than your medical bills would suggest. You may be able to maximize your compensation for pain and suffering after an accident by consulting with a lawyer.

COMMONLY OCCURRING DAMAGES

Depending on the severity of your injuries, the expenses of a major accident might vary greatly. For instance:

TBI (TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY)

Treatment for traumatic brain damage may cost anywhere from $85,000 to $3 million, depending on the degree of the injury. Some traumatic brain injury patients may need constant care for the rest of their lives because they may not function on their own or may put themselves in unsafe circumstances if they are left alone. Many brain damage sufferers need extensive occupational therapy to relearn skills they had previously accomplished with ease.

DAMAGE TO THE SPINAL CORD

Some of the most expensive medical bills are associated with spinal cord injuries. More than

$347,000 may be spent on treating injuries that result in a loss of motor function. At

$518,000, the beginning expenditures for patients with low tetraplegia, or paralysis that occurs from the neck down, may be expected for those with paraplegia.

Depending on the severity of the injuries and how much medical care is required, the annual cost of therapy might range from $69,000 to $184,000 each year. As a consequence of their injuries, patients with spinal cord injury may need to make major changes to their homes and lives, leading to additional costs.

AMPUTATIONS

Initial medical expenses for amputation of a foot or a leg might be anywhere from $30,000 to

$60,000. Patients should anticipate paying that amount again in follow-up charges over the next three years. That doesn’t even consider the long-term expense of prosthetics, which may need to be replaced every three to five years for the remainder of the patient’s life.

Certain gadgets may need to be replaced more often to keep their mobility and functionality at their peak. Depending on the technology used and its intended use, between $5,000 to

$50,000 may be spent on a prosthetic limb.

Bones have been fractured. Broken bones might cost as much as $2,500 without surgery. This may be a significant problem for many individuals who do not have health insurance. However, surgery is required for the effective healing of many fractured bones sustained in accidents.

The expense of surgery to repair a broken arm might run as high as $14,000 or more. Patients with badly damaged bones may also need physical therapy to help them restore full strength and movement in the afflicted limb. Consequently, even slight accidents might result in high medical expenses.

Being represented by an attorney may make a big difference in the amount of money you get for your injuries if you are the victim of an accident. Consult an injury lawyer as soon as possible following your accident to learn more about the value of your injury claim.