Accident Injuries: How Much Should I Settle For?

If you have suffered accident injuries and have received a settlement offer from an insurance company or other entity, a number of factors should be considered before accepting the settlement offer being made. Regardless of how enticing a large lump sum may appear, accident injury victims must consider the true value of their claim and the future legal implications of accepting of a settlement offer before doing so.

Determine the Relative Merits and Strength of Your Accident Injuries Claim

All accident injuries possess different merits when it comes to analyzing their legal viability and strength. Ultimately, any entity making a settlement offer is seeking to mitigate their potential losses from a given accident injury case. By settling early and outside of court, these parties want to avoid several things, including the costs of additional damages, future claims, and most importantly, the potential losses they may incur if a case goes to court. Accident injury victims possessing claims with sufficient merit to gain a favorable outcome in the courts are in a strong position. A viable claim in the courts, which has not yet been brought to trial, presents the possibility of all the outcomes that a person or party offering to settle wish to avoid. When determining the amount to settle for concerning accident injury claims, individuals should carefully consider the potential cost fallout of the entity offering the settlement before agreeing to anything.

Determine the True Value of the Claim

Realistically, a person injured in an accident is typically seeking compensation for damages and losses sustained as the result of the accident. Calculating the economic damages of an accident, which are known in the insurance industry as special damages, is relatively easy, and requires some forethought as to the potential future costs of the accident injury. These will vary per each specific accident case. However, more subjective and difficult to determine are the damage claims that are non-economic in nature, known also as general damages in the insurance industry, such as pain, suffering, loss of experiences, emotional losses, and others.

By calculating the amount of special damages, insurance adjustors use a sliding scale based on the severity of injuries to calculate the amount of general damages compensation to offer, which is done by multiplying the amount of the special damages by the number one through ten, which is used only in extreme injury claims cases. Relatively minor injuries often result in initial settlement offer of special damages, times one and half or two for general damages, and include compensation for lost income. The more invasive and emotionally damaging an accident injury, the higher the multiplier applied to the special damages amount to determine general damages. This may not prove applicable to all claims cases, and not all accident injury settlements will come from an insurance claims adjustor either. Individuals really should take their case specific queries and concerns to a competent attorney before making any decisions.

Getting Legal Help with Accident Injury Settlements

It is important to note that not all accident injury claims will involve insurance companies, and realistically, only an attorney with experience in accident injury claims cases can determine the right settlement amount to compensate for the specific damages in your case. On the other hand, it is also a personal decision, which requires victims to be adamant about the true cost of their injuries and ensuring they are rightfully compensated for their losses, while not being unrealistic about potential damage awards. Settlements outside of court will often cost victims the amount they spend on legal counsel for the brief negotiations period in most cases, while going through an entire civil suit process could end up costing an injured person more than the final value of their claim paid out.

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