Personal Injury Compensation

You’ve been hurt in an accident and you want to file a claim for your injuries. Maybe you have a car accident injury, or you were hurt because someone had something unsafe on their property, or someone was negligent and you were injured. What’s the first thing that you should do?

There are a number of things you can do after an accident to protect yourself in the event you want to file a personal injury claim. Unless you’re filing a claim against the government or a government employee, there’s no single step that you absolutely have to take to receive personal injury compensation, and no order that you have to do them in. But the more of the things listed that you can do, the more easily the whole process will go.

• Write down as much as you can about the accident itself, your injuries, and any other losses you may have suffered as a result of your injury.
• Take photographs and preserve any evidence that you have of the cause of the accident and what damage was done. Collect any physical evidence that there might be.
• Make notes of any conversations that you have with people who were involved in the accident, or who witnessed the accident. Try to locate other people who might have been witnesses.
• Notify everyone that you think is responsible for your injuries of your intention to file a claim.

How soon do I need to notify people about my intention to file a personal injury claim?
Again, unless you’re filing a claim against a government agency or government employee, there isn’t a time limit to notify the people you think are responsible for your injuries. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should wait. The sooner you notify them and file your claim, the higher the chances of receiving a personal injury compensation that is both quick and fair.

Giving notice doesn’t obligate you to file a claim; it just prevents others from later asserting that your personal injury claim is unfair because you waited too long to tell them about your injuries. If you are prompt about notifying others that you intend to file a claim, it takes the pressure off because you can then take your time with the rest of the process.

Get a Personal Injury Lawyer
A personal injury lawyer specializes in personal injury claims and knows the rules and regulations involved in these situations. He is better able to negotiate personal injury compensation, and ups your chances of receiving a fair settlement. Unless you are skilled at dealing with insurance companies and the court system, a personal injury lawyer is your best bet.

Filing personal injury claims can be stressful, and the last thing you need right now is added stress. Following these steps will help you to navigate the tricky process that personal injury claims can be, and can be a fast track to a quick, fair settlement.

PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS: How To Calculate Your Personal Injury Compensation

You’ve been hurt, and someone else was at fault, not you (or it wasn’t your fault entirely). So you filed a claim, because it’s only right that they pay damages. Maybe you have a permanent limp from a car accident injury, or you were hurt on someone’s property due to their negligence. Your personal injury lawyer says that it looks as if they’re going to make an offer. But what is your personal injury worth? Figuring out what your personal injury compensation is going to be is a critical aspect of all personal injury claims, and it’s the part of a claim that’s most difficult to determine. The amount can vary wildly, depending on your injury and the circumstances. But you still want to figure out what they’ll pay.
How do they do that? Here is how insurance companies determine the value of a claim:

What Insurance Companies Have to Pay you For:
What can you be compensated for? Usually, a person who is liable for an accident must
pay an injured person for:

• Their medical care and related expenses.
• The income they lost because of the accident, because of time spent unable to work or undergoing treatment for their injuries.
• A permanent physical disability or disfigurement they have because of their injury.
• The loss of family, social, and educational experiences, including missed school or training, vacations, or any special events they were not able to attend.
• Emotional damages, such as stress, embarrassment, or depression. This can cover a wide range of symptoms. For example, they must pay you for your anxiety over the effects of an accident, or the effects of the injury on your unborn child, or if you’re not able to properly care for your children.
• Damage to their property.

The Formula
When deciding personal injury claims, it’s usually simple to add up the money that was spent and the money that the claimant lost, but there isn’t a concrete way to put a figure on pain and suffering. So how do they decide? That’s where a damages formula comes in.

An insurance adjuster adds up the total medical expenses related to personal injury claims.
That’s the base figure the adjuster uses to figure out how much to pay the injured person. These are called ‘special’ damages. Pain and suffering and other things that don’t have a specific money amount linked to them are ‘general’ damages.

When the injuries are minor, the insurance claim adjuster multiplies the amount of special damages by 1.5 or 2. When the injuries are very painful, serious, or long-lasting, the adjuster multiplies the amount of special damages by up to 5. This is how the ‘general’ damages are calculated in.

He then adds on any income lost as a result of the injuries.

That’s all there is to the formula. The medical or ‘specials’ multiplied by a number between 1.5 and 5 to represent ‘general’ damages, then that amount added to lost income. However, this isn’t the final amount, but is only the number that is first offered to you. The number that the insurance adjuster multiples the ‘special’ damages by is arbitrary, and is open to interpretation. This is where your personal injury lawyer begins to negotiate.
There are other things beside the ‘general’ damages that affect how much your personal injury compensation will be, and one of them is the question of fault. Did you have any fault at all in the accident? If so, the compensation will be reduced by the percentage they decide was your fault.

So there it is. You can get a general idea of how much personal injury claims are worth, just by applying the same formula that insurance adjusters use. It will be one less thing for you to think about, and you can spend your time healing instead of worrying.