If you’ve suffered injury in an accident, it might only be a matter of time before you start facing financial problems. This is not just because of medical bills, but also because of the time you may have to spend away from work. In such a scenario, it’s fair to wonder what affects the value of a personal injury claim.
The fact is that different factors affect your personal injury case value. After all, no two accidents or injuries are alike, and insurance policies play a role, too. Once you understand these, you can make informed decisions and set realistic expectations throughout the process.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are the most straightforward component of your personal injury case value. These are the objective and verifiable financial losses you incur, and will continue to incur, because of your injury.
Medical Bills
Your medical treatment forms the backbone of your bodily injury claim value. Typically, the more severe and extensive your medical care, the higher your case value. For example, a claim involving emergency surgery, spending a week in the hospital, and months of physical therapy will inherently command a higher payout than an injury requiring just a single emergency room visit.
In addition, your personal injury settlement value doesn’t account just for the bills you have already received. If your doctor says you will need ongoing care, such as future surgeries, specialized prescription medications, or lifetime chiropractic treatment, it’s crucial to calculate and factor the projected cost of that future care into your demand.
Lost Wages and Diminished Earning Capacity
If your injuries keep you away from work for weeks or months, you are entitled to claim loss of earnings. This depends on your standard pay rate, your average hours worked, and any missed bonuses or commissions.
The stakes get significantly higher if you suffer a permanent disability that prevents you from ever returning to work or requires you to take a lower-paying job. Calculating this diminished earning capacity often requires your attorney to bring in a forensic economics expert who can project what you would have earned over the remainder of your working life, adjusting for inflation, career promotions, and retirement benefits.
Non-Economic Damages
While calculating economic losses is relatively easy, this is not the case with non-economic damages like pain and suffering because they compensate you for the intangible and emotional toll of an accident.
There is no set statutory formula when it comes to calculating pain and suffering damages, and insurance adjusters and juries look at how an injury has disrupted your daily life. Pain and suffering can include:
- Physical pain and ongoing discomfort.
- Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- Loss of enjoyment of life.
- Permanent scarring or physical disfigurement.
To maximize this portion of your personal injury settlement value, you must document your daily struggles. This can be in the form of keeping a daily pain journal, maintaining consistency in psychological counseling, and gathering testimonies from friends and family about your limitations.
The Serious Injury Threshold
If your injury is the result of an automobile accident, you have to navigate the serious injury threshold hurdle before you can sue for pain and suffering. According to Section 5102 under Chapter 28, Article 51 of the Consolidated Laws of New York, a serious injury includes:
- Death or dismemberment.
- Significant disfigurement.
- A fracture (broken bone).
- Loss of a fetus.
- Permanent loss or consequential limitation of a body organ, member, or function.
Given that New York follows the no-fault insurance system, your own automobile insurance policy covers your medical bills and a portion of your lost wages under personal injury protection (PIP), irrespective of who causes an accident. In addition, the rules legally prohibit you from suing an at-fault driver for non-economic damages unless your injury meets the state’s serious injury threshold.
If your injury does not meet these strict criteria, your injury settlement amount might depend solely on what your no-fault insurance covers.
Contributory Negligence
As per the contributory negligence doctrine that New York follows, you can seek compensation even if you are partially to blame for an incident. Calculating personal injury damages in this case depends on your percentage of fault.
Consider this example. A jury determines that your total damages are worth $100,000. However, evidence shows you were speeding when another driver cut you off, and the jury finds you 20% responsible for the crash. This reduces your payout by 20%, leaving you with a final recovery of $80,000.
A positive aspect of this rule is that you could be 90% at fault and still recover 10% of your total damages.
Pre-Existing Conditions
If insurance adjusters find you had a prior back injury or a degenerative disc disease before a car crash, they can argue that your current pain is a continuation of an old problem, and not a result of their insured party’s negligence. However, the answer to “Can pre-existing conditions affect a personal injury settlement?” is not an automatic yes.
New York’s eggshell skull rule dictates that a defendant must take a plaintiff as they find them. So, if you had a dormant and stable pre-existing condition that was completely asymptomatic, and the accident suddenly aggravated, worsened, or reactivated it, the at-fault party is legally responsible for the same. Sequencing your medical timeline is crucial to win this argument, and your attorney will need to show a clear demarcation point.
Insurance Policy Caps and Corporate Defendants
While you might have a textbook case with millions of dollars in damages, your actual recovery can still hit a hard wall based on the financial resources available to pay the claim. This is because you are typically collecting money from an insurance policy, and not out of the defendant’s personal bank account.
Insurance Policy Limits
Every insurance policy has a cap, and in New York, the mandatory minimum auto liability coverage per accident can be inadequate in several cases. It stands at $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 for bodily injury to two or more people, and $10,000 for property damage.
If you suffer a serious injury requiring $200,000 in medical care, and the at-fault driver only carries the minimum policy of $25,000, recovering the remaining $175,000 can be incredibly difficult unless you carry supplementary uninsured/underinsured motorist (SUM) coverage on your own auto policy.
Commercial vs. Private Defendants
The equation changes considerably if you suffer injury because of a commercial vehicle, like an Amazon delivery van, a city bus, or a construction truck, or on the premises of a major corporation, like a supermarket chain. This is because commercial entities typically carry multi-million-dollar umbrella insurance policies, allowing your attorney to pursue the full value of your damages.
The Strength of Your Evidence and Credibility
Insurance companies typically settle claims only when their legal teams realize that going to court will likely cost them far more. As a result, the leverage your attorney has at the negotiation table depends heavily on the evidence. Factors that instantly strengthen your case include:
- An unbiased police report. A police officer’s report that clearly assigns fault or issues a traffic citation to the other driver is incredibly powerful.
- Medical documentation. Going straight to the doctor or hospital immediately following an accident leaves a paper trail in the form of credible medical records. If you wait three weeks to see a doctor, an insurance company can argue that your injuries happened somewhere else, or that they aren’t as serious as you claim.
- Surveillance and dashcam footage. Video evidence works rather well in eliminating the he-said, she-said dynamic.
- Your personal credibility. If a case goes to trial, your credibility plays a key role. Remember that courts favor plaintiffs who are honest, consistent, and relatable, and if you exaggerate your injuries or get caught in a contradiction, your personal injury lawsuit value can plummet instantly.
What Decreases the Value of an Injury Claim?
If you wish to protect your potential settlement, you must avoid common missteps that insurance companies actively look for to devalue your claim. These include:
- Failing to follow medical advice. If your doctor prescribes physical therapy three times a week and you skip half the sessions, an insurance adjuster can claim that you are either fabricating your pain or actively failing to mitigate your injuries.
- Posting on social media. Posting photos of yourself smiling at a family barbecue, traveling, or participating in physical activities while simultaneously claiming you are in severe pain is a surefire way to reduce the value of your case. This is because you may expect the insurance company to keep a close eye on your social media
- Giving a recorded statement too soon. Insurance adjusters are trained to ask open-ended and misleading questions early in a case before you fully know the extent of your injuries. So, if you tell them you’re feeling okay initially, they can use your statement against you in the future.
Conclusion
Now that you know what factors affect the value of a personal injury case, keep in mind that trying to determine how much to seek as compensation on your own can be a recipe for leaving money on the table. An experienced personal injury attorney understands how to meticulously calculate your future medical needs, combat bad-faith insurance tactics, counter claims of contributory negligence, and present compelling evidence.
Besides, personal injury attorneys operate on a contingency fee basis, meaning you pay nothing up front, and they only get paid if they successfully recover a settlement or verdict for you.