How can I figure out how much my personal injury settlement could be?

Determining how much your personal injury settlement should be is tricky, since there is no one clear mathematical formula used to calculate a settlement. It is possible, however, to get a better understanding of what your settlement should be by understanding the factors that go into arriving at a personal injury settlement. 

When someone injures you negligently- either in a car accident, slip and fall, malpractice case or other similar situation- that person becomes responsible for paying for your injuries. Most often, an insurance company steps in at this point and assumes responsibility. Insurance companies wish to control risk and so they are likely going to offer you a cash lump sum settlement in exchange for you signing a legal release of liability that ensures you cannot sue them. Once you sign this personal injury settlement you are limited to recovering only the amount of cash they offered you. 

The amount that they should offer you, or the appropriate personal injury settlement, varies depending on:

• How strong your case is- if it is 100 percent clear to everyone involved that the other party was at fault and that you will win in a trial, the offer from the insurance company should be higher. Since you're pretty much guaranteed a win, the insurance company would have to pay out whatever the jury decided was appropriate, which could be very high if you get a sympathetic jury. The insurance company is going to want to avoid this, and should make you a better settlement deal in order to do so. 
• The severity of your injury. Juries consider pain and suffering, emotional distress, medical bills and lost wages when deciding on a damage award. This means that the more serious your injury, the higher these damage awards would be and the more a jury would award you. The settlement needs to also compensate you for these things if you are to accept. 

Because there are so many variables, the best thing to do is to contact a lawyer who can assist you in determining how much your settlement should be.