One of the challenges that you face in any type of personal injury case is knowing how much to seek in a settlement or jury award. You can be certain that the insurance company has this information and knows the value of your case down to practically the dollar. Although this calculation is important in every type of personal injury case, it is even more important when you have suffered a severe physical injury, such as one to your head. A personal injury attorney can work to estimate your damages, and then they can lead the fight with the insurance company to get you fully paid.
Head Injuries May Involve Possible Brain Damage
The trauma or violent motion from an accident could have caused an injury to your head. This injury could have been to the brain or skull. Since head injuries can involve possible brain damage, your compensation in one of these cases may be considerable. It is difficult to say what your case may be worth without knowing more about your diagnosis. There are different types of head injuries, and they vary in severity. The amount of your compensation will be tied to the seriousness of your injuries and the level of insurance coverage available to pay for your damages.
Your Head Injury Lawyer Could Help You Learn the Value of Your Case
You will need to know how much your head injury claim is worth before you file it with the insurance company. You will have to support your damages with documentation and be able to back up your numbers when the insurance company challenges them. In other words, there may be a considerable amount of legwork required before you reach the point where you can file a claim.
Your head injury attorney will review your individual case to help you learn the amount of compensation to which you may be entitled. They will go over your medical records and prognosis and perhaps work with expert witnesses to help reach this conclusion. Helping you learn the value of your case is one of the key functions that your head injury lawyer will perform for you.
What Does My Compensation Consist of in a Head Injury Case?
The exact value of your case depends on your individual circumstances. Once you can prove that someone else was responsible for your accident injury, they will assume the obligation to pay you full compensation. There are two general categories of damages in a head injury case:
- Economic damages are the actual financial losses that are associated with your injury
- Non-economic damages represent compensation for the many ways that your head injury has affected your life
Economic Damages for a Head Injury
Your head injury can impose a number of financial costs on you. The most obvious cost is the medical expense necessary to treat your injuries. If you have suffered any type of brain injury, you can be looking at steep medical expenses. Serious brain injuries may cost more than $1 million to treat.
Then, your head injury can leave you unable to work for an extended period of time. Depending on the severity of your injury, you may not be able to work again at all. Lost income, or compensation for a reduction in your earnings capacity, is a large part of your head injury claim.
Non-Economic Damages for Your Head Injury
You will enter more uncertain territory when it comes to claiming non-economic damages for your injuries. The reason why is that these damages are inherently subjective, and they depend on your own personal experience. The insurance company likes to take the subjectivity out of the equation as much as possible because they want to reduce their own tab. Your challenge is to tell your own story and persuade the insurance company to pay you for what you have endured.
Pain and suffering is a large part of your claim when you have suffered a serious injury. You may be dealing with the effects of the injury in various ways. You can be in physical pain, and you may be suffering from anxiety and depression because of your injuries. You could have lost much of the enjoyment of your life that you had before the accident.
The insurance company will try to use the multiplier method to calculate your pain and suffering damages. They will assign a certain multiplier to your medical expenses to determine how much they will offer you in pain and suffering compensation. If your head injury involves any damage to your brain, the multiplier may be higher. Unfortunately, the multiplier method may not result in fair compensation because it may not factor in your own unique circumstances. Your head injury lawyer may need to fight to get the insurance company to listen when their offer does not reflect your own individual reality.
You Can Negotiate to Receive the Proper Amount of Compensation
You are not obligated to accept any settlement offer that the insurance company extends to you. In fact, you should absolutely reject it when they do not offer you enough money to cover your damages. You only get one chance to settle a head injury claim, and you are leaving money on the table when you accept a disadvantageous settlement offer. You will be unable to come back to the insurance company in the future to get more money if you later learn that you did not negotiate for enough compensation.
If the insurance company will not offer you enough money, your personal injury attorney will up the legal pressure on them to pay more. This may mean that your personal injury lawyer continues to negotiate against the backdrop of threatened litigation. If the jury sides with you at trial, they can have an intense reaction when they see a plaintiff who suffered a serious head injury because of someone else’s careless actions. Thus, you may have more leverage than you think when negotiating with the insurance company.