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How Much Do You Get For Pain And Suffering In A Car Accident?

Anyone who has suffered for things that do not initially seem directly related to the cause will know that these types of things happen. Pain and suffering compensation is available after an injury, but you will need to properly document and have information to support your calculations if you are looking for a settlement for Pain and Suffering.

In many cases, what a person will be paid in regards to their insurance policy is easy to figure out and pretty straightforward. Your medical bills and property damage repairs come with receipts. When you add up your bills and your receipts, that is the amount of money that the insurance company compensates, after other contract obligations from both the policyholder and the company. Putting a price on a person’s suffering and pain can be difficult. The first step is to know what is covered and counts as pain-and-suffering.

What Counts As Pain And Suffering?

In claims involving personal injury, the term pain-and-suffering is a representation of the emotional distress a person endures after being injured through negligent acts of a person who is deemed to be at fault. The term refers to non-economic and general damages that cannot be calculated by adding up receipts and bills.

Pain-and-suffering can be caused by any number of things, including physical discomfort and pain, whether it is temporary or is permanent. Also, insomnia, depression, anxiety, memory loss, and other emotional disorders that stem from an injury or accident can also be included as pain-and-suffering.

In some cases, physical limitations, or things that you could do before an injury or accident and cannot do after, are also included. This can include the mental suffering that comes from things like not being able to hug your children or play with them.

Any other psychological or emotional trauma can also be included in determining pain-and-suffering compensation. This can even include loss of consortium, or loss of supportive relationships, with your family members and loved ones.

There are numerous circumstances where a person might not be eligible for pain-and-suffering compensation as well. This includes small claims court lawsuits, no-fault insurance claims, Worker’s Compensation claims, and other situations as well. If it is determined that you are eligible for pain-and-suffering compensation, there are a few different methods that the compensation is usually calculated using. These includes the per diem method and the multiple method.

How To Calculate Pain And Suffering

Calculating pain-and-suffering is not always easy to do, but there are generally two methods that are used, which are discussed more in full below. A person cannot simply request a large amount of money from their insurance company and expect the company to provide it. A credible basis to justify the compensation needs to be presented, and you will need to back it up with reasonable and reliable evidence.

In most cases, accidents that do not leave a person permanently injured or critically affected will see smaller multipliers used to determine their compensation. The circumstances of a person’s injury play a vital role in a person’s ability to justify their suffering and pain. Most insurance adjusters do expect to add a small amount of money on top of the special damages to cover pain-and-suffering. In many cases, people take that offer. If they decide not to, they can utilize persuasive arguments to try to raise the amount of pain-and-suffering compensation in their settlement. Knowing both what is considered pain-and-suffering, as well as the two main ways that compensation is determined, can help you increase the amount of compensation you get.

Pain And Suffering Calculation Methods

The Per Diem method of calculating uses a method that assigns a dollar value for each day a person is experiencing pain-and-suffering. It often uses a person’s daily wages as an amount, which is then multiplied by the number of days a person who was injured was affected by the injury. This method is rarely ever used for insurance settlements, however.

The other method is more commonly used and is called the Multiple Method. This calculation involves totaling the injured person’s economic damages and applying a multiplier to it. The multipliers can be anywhere from 1 to 5. Economic damages are considered your hard costs for lost wages, medical bills, and other related out-of-pocket expenses. Adjusters call these special damages. And you will generally have bills and receipts to support the dollar amounts figured into this portion of the calculation.

The harder part of Multiple Method calculations is figuring out which number, one through five, will be used as a multiplier.

Final Notes

Continuing communication with your insurance provider and having the knowledge from this article and others at Insurance US, you can work towards getting the most compensation possible for your pain-and-suffering. A person involved in an automobile accident or other personal injury does not need to roll over and accept the first settlement that a car insurance company provides. If you feel you deserve more, you can talk to a professional or approach your insurance company yourself.

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