How much is pain and suffering worth in monetary terms?

Calculating compensation for a brain injury and the related pain and suffering is a relatively complex task, often relying on the highly individual nature of the injuries sustained by a given victim, as well as other case-specific factors. In general, pain and suffering is valued alongside other general damage claims, which will likely include disability, mental anguish, diminished quality of life, and other non-pecuniary losses sustained by a victim in a brain injury case. These damages, known as general damages, non-economic damages, or non-pecuniary damages, carry no directly documentable financial value per se, but are nonetheless very real complications, losses, and harms sustained by a victim. In turn, compensating a victim for these damages, as well as calculating the value of the pain and suffering involved in a general damages claim, becomes a highly individualized process, often subject to negotiations between an insurance company and the victim’s legal counsel.

In practice, the only definitive method of determining the value of your brain injury case, including the associated pain and suffering damages, will be through consulting with a personal injury lawyer directly about the specific nature of your injuries, your claims case, and other relevant factors. As a general rule, insurance companies value pain and suffering based on the amount of special damages claimed by a victim (economic damages) and apply a multiplier (one and half through five or more) to generally estimate the value of the general damages, including pain and suffering. This highly subjective process will be subject to extensive negotiations, if a personal injury lawyer is used.