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SaveHow Much Is Your Claim Worth
To determine what your claim is worth, an attorney will consider and advise you of the things for which you are entitled to compensation. Usually, a person who is liable for an injury and therefore his or her liability insurance company must pay an injured person for:
- medical care and related expenses
- income lost because of the accident, because of time spent unable to work or undergoing treatment for injuries
- permanent physical disability or disfigurement
- loss of family, social and educational experiences, including missed school or training, vacation or recreation, or a special event
- emotional damages, such as stress, embarrassment, depression or strains on family relationships for example, the inability to take care of children, anxiety over the effects of an accident on an unborn child, or interference with sexual relations, and
- damaged property.
When determining the correct compensation for a personal injury claim, it is relatively simple to add up the money spent and money lost, but there is no precise way to put a dollar figure on pain and suffering or on missed experiences and lost opportunities. That's where a damages formula often comes into play.
At the beginning of claim negotiations with your attorney, an insurance adjuster or defense attorney will add up the total medical expenses related to your injury. These expenses are referred to as "medical special damages" or simply "specials." That's the base figure an insurance company will use to figure out how much to pay for pain, suffering and other nonmonetary losses, which are called "general" damages.
The amount of special damages are then multiplied by 1.5 or 2 when the injuries are relatively minor, or up to 5 when the injuries are particularly painful, serious or longlasting. (The multiplier may be as great as 10 in extreme cases.) Any income lost as a result of the injuries is then added to the total.
This figure medical specials multiplied by a number between 1.5 and 5, then added to lost income is not a final compensation amount, but only the number from which settlement negotiations begin.
Determining the Correct Multiplier
Several things determine the multiplier the number usually between 1.5 and 5 that may be applied to the special damages in your claim. Here are some general guidelines:
- The more painful the injury, the higher the multiplier.
- The more invasive and longlasting the medical treatment, the higher the multiplier.
- The more obvious the medical evidence of the injury, the higher the multiplier.
- The longer the recovery period, the higher the multiplier.
- The more serious and visible any permanent effect of the injury, the higher the multiplier.
The multiplier also depends on the type of medical treatment you receive. Treatment that doesn't come directly from physicians even if they recommend or order it often isn't valued as highly by insurance companies and defense attorneys. That means physical therapy, chiropractic treatment and osteopathy are generally not given as much weight in determining the correct multiplier. Unfortunately, treatments such as acupressure, acupuncture and massage therapy are given little or no weight at all. Nonetheless, your attorney is in the best position to argue in favor of giving weight to such treatments, and is more likely to be successful in his or her arguments than you, as the injured party possibly experiencing such things for the first time, would.
Some content reproduced with permission of Nolo Press
Copyright 2002 Nolo, Inc.