Personal Injury claims seek to recover compensation for three main factors; the victim’s medical expenses lost income and wages, and their pain and suffering.
For short-term injuries such as a broken arm, calculating your medical expenses and lost income can be fairly straightforward. Simply add up the costs of your medical bills, and the amount of time you have missed from work multiplied by your expected salary, and you have a pretty accurate idea of how much compensation to seek and expect in these areas.
For more serious injuries with longer-lasting consequences, calculating medical expenses and lost income becomes a bit more difficult, and is an area where having an experienced Mercer County personal injury attorney to assist you can be of great benefit. Not only will you wish to recover compensation for your medical expenses to-date, but serious injuries often require on-going medical treatment and rehabilitation which will need to be accurately estimated, something your attorney will have experience doing. The same goes for lost income, if your injuries prevent you from continuing in your previous line of employment, you will need to calculate exactly how much you may have earned given a lifetime of employment, including bonuses and promotions.
How Do Insurance Companies Calculate Pain and Suffering Compensation?
When it comes to pain and suffering however, calculations become quite a bit vaguer. How does one express exactly the pain their injuries have caused them, and then translate those feelings into a monetary number? Most insurance companies use a similar method when calculating what to offer in terms of pain and suffering for a given injury, and while you and your Mercer County injury lawyer may not immediately accept that offer, it is important to understand how the insurance company is arriving at that number, or what kind of offer you should expect for a given injury.
When it comes to pain and suffering, insurance companies will make their compensation offer based on whether or not the injury in question was a soft-tissue injury or a hard injury.
Soft Tissue Injury Compensation Mercer County Personal Injury Lawsuits
Soft tissue injuries are generally less severe, non-life-threatening, and not permanent. Common examples of soft tissue injuries are bruises, strains, and sprains. While certainly these injuries can be more painful for some people than others or cause more difficulty in some lives than others, insurance companies generally will offer between one to three times the value of your medical expenses like pain and suffering compensation.
Hard Injury Compensation Trenton Injury Attorneys
Hard injuries are generally much more serious injuries than soft tissue injuries. Hard injuries often require invasive methods to assess and treat, and can often cause long-term or permanent difficulties and pain to the victim. Some common hard injuries are broken bones, serious wounds that require transfusion or stitching, head, and brain injuries, and spinal cord injuries.
Due to the more serious nature of hard injuries, and the greater level of medical attention required, insurance companies will usually offer somewhere between four to five times the value of medical expenses as pain and suffering compensation.
Recovering Pain and Suffering Damages in a Personal Injury Case NJ
While insurance companies do have these rough guidelines for offering pain and suffering damages in personal injury cases, in order to recover the compensation you need and deserve it is important to retain the counsel of an experienced Mercer County personal injury attorney. Many times insurance companies will try to devalue the full extent of the nature of your injuries, claim you were partially responsible and as such not entitled to full compensation, or even dispute the connection between your accident and the injuries you have suffered. An experienced personal injury attorney will understand how to combat these various tactics, and present a strong case on your behalf backed by expert consultants, detailed investigation and research, and effective presentation to courts and juries alike.
Contact Our Mercer County Personal Injury Attorneys Today
At Cohen & Riechelson, our personal injury attorneys have a history of success when it comes to helping clients injured in accidents across Princeton, Trenton, Hamilton, Lawrence, and the greater Mercer County area.
Our goal in any personal injury case is to provide personal and attentive service to our clients, and secure them the compensation they need and deserve for injuries resulting from car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, construction accidents, slip and falls, ladder and scaffolding accidents, and more.
If you have been injured as the result of the reckless or negligent actions of another, contact our firm today to discuss your options in a free and confidential consultation. To schedule your consultation, please contact us online. or through our Hamilton, NJ office at 609.528.2596.
