When you are in a car accident, the impacts can affect the rest of your life. You may feel like no amount of money can restore your life to the way it was. Regardless, ensuring you recover the compensation you deserve can help ease the financial burden an accident can place on your life. If you are the victim of a car accident, familiarizing yourself with how settlements are calculated is crucial. Luckily, the following blog explores what you must know about these matters and how a Pasco County, FL car accident lawyer can help you get the compensation you deserve for the injuries you’ve sustained.
What Compensation Can I Seek After a Car Crash?
Before you understand how settlements are calculated, you must know the damages you can seek. Essentially, damages are the remedy to help the injured party, which in almost all instances, is monetary compensation.
You can seek both economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages represent actual, monetary losses you’ve suffered because of the collision. In most cases, these include past and future medical bills and any income you may have lost if you took time off work to heal.
Non-economic damages can be harder to recover because they are more subjective. They represent intangible, emotional losses. For example, they include pain and suffering, humiliation, disfigurement and loss of enjoyment of life.
Is There a Method to Calculate Accident Settlements?
Generally, to calculate a settlement from a car accident, the insurance adjuster assigned to the case will take the economic damages you’ve suffered and multiply them by a factor between one and five to determine the non-economic damages you should receive. Generally, the more severe and catastrophic your damages are, the higher the number the adjuster will assign to your case. Once they have the multiplied number, this is combined with the original economic damages to produce the final settlement offer. This method of calculating damages is known as the multiplier method.
However, there is also the per diem method. Essentially, this assigns you a monetary amount for each day until you reach maximum medical recovery. For example, if you break your arm as a result of the accident and receive $50 per day for the 90 days it takes you to heal, you would recover $4,500.
It’s important to understand that the insurance adjuster assigned to your case will likely try to downplay the severity of your injuries to save money, thus preventing you from recovering the compensation you deserve. As such, it’s imperative to connect with an experienced attorney to fight for the funds you are entitled to because of a negligent party.
When you are hurt, the Law Offices of Matthew J. Jowanna, P.A., can help you recover the compensation you deserve. Our dedicated legal team understands how devastating car accidents can be for victims, which is why we will handle the legal complexities of these matters. This allows you to focus on healing. Contact us today to discuss the details of your case with a member of our compassionate team.
