How Is Pain and Suffering Calculated in a Car Accident Case?

In a car accident lawsuit, insurers often utilize one of two approaches to quantify the plaintiff’s mental anguish: the per multiplier method or the per diem approach. Pain and suffering are intangible, unlike medical bills or repair costs, making it more challenging to assign a monetary amount to them in a court of law.

Car accidents may need trips to the emergency department, imaging tests, and even surgery, followed by days, weeks, or months of agony and rehabilitation. You may suffer a permanent disability or psychological and physiological damage from your injuries. When determining your settlement, it is essential to understand how your auto insurer factors in non-economic losses like pain and suffering.

Defining Pain and Suffering

A Colorado Springs car accident may inflict physical and mental harm, leading to pain and suffering. Possible injuries sustained in the collision include broken bones in the neck and back, which might prevent you from engaging in certain activities. Maybe the car accident settlement left you with lasting scars or deformities from burns. You can have trouble sleeping because of the distressing event.

Each of these injuries can leave a person with the permanent physical and emotional trauma caused by mental scars that may be hard to measure. Your potential financial recovery from an insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit after a Colorado Springs car accident is directly tied to the value placed on your emotional pain and suffering.

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How the Insurance Company Calculates Pain and Suffering

The insurance company will consider several variables when deciding how much money to provide you for medical bills and lost wages after an auto accident.

Seek Medical Attention Following a Colorado Springs car accident

Whiplash, sprained neck or back, and concussions are among traumas that might cause delayed onset of symptoms. The insurance company is less likely to give your back injury claim of any value if you do not have it checked out right after a Colorado Springs car accident. If you have any concerns about possible injuries or symptoms that may not appear immediately, you should schedule an appointment with a doctor. This evidence will be crucial if you sue the other motorist for damages.

Evidence the Insurance Company Will Review

Insurance companies often want access to patients’ medical data when settling claims for personal injuries. It would lend credence to your claim if you were forced to miss time at work or school to visit a doctor about your injuries. Compensation may also be given for time away from work caused by injuries sustained by at faulty driver in a Colorado Springs car accident.

Before assigning a dollar amount to your pain and suffering claim, the insurance company will analyze the following documents relevant to your case:

• Medical records

• Medical bills

• Photographs of your injuries

• Prescription medication costs

• Documentation for the purchase of nonprescription drugs or medical equipment (e.g., crutches or wheelchairs)

• Documentation of work absence by the employer

To avoid losing track of important information, store all receipts, medical records, and other paperwork related to your injury in one easily accessible location.

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How Much Are Pain and Suffering Usually Worth?

Damages for emotional distress might range from several hundred to several million dollars. It is difficult to price a pain and suffering claim since every injury is different. The following criteria typically determine pain and emotional suffering awards in Colorado:

• Is it possible to go about your daily life usually, or have you had to make adjustments because of the injury?

• Can you still enjoy life despite suffering pain from the injury?

• Is there any interference with your ability to get a job and make money?

• When this anguish calculating pain, and suffering ends, will there be more?

• Did you and your loved ones have to worry about whether you could walk again after the injury?

• Did the injury impair your general physical health and strength?

• Is there accompanying pain and suffering settlement on the psychological and emotional levels? And will there be sought medical treatment in the foreseeable future?

• Do you anticipate any long-term physical limitations as a result of the injury?

The more these circumstances apply to your injury claim, the higher the potential compensation for your injuries proves pain and associated suffering. The difficulty is arriving at an accurate figure, which may entail some bargaining.

Using the Multiplier Method

Estimating the monetary value of your emotional distress might be difficult. For assessing these types of non-monetary losses, many insurance providers use the multiplier approach to calculate the pain amount. To calculate damages using the multiplier approach, you would tally up the actual costs and then multiply that sum by a factor of 1.5 to 5. Your suffering is proportional to the multiplier you choose to calculate.

If you were permanently disabled because of your injuries, the multiplier used to calculate your pain and suffering damages would be close to five. Your mental pain and suffering compensation and emotional misery and suffering multiplier will be multiplied by a larger number if your injuries are more serious.

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Using the Per Diem Method

Pain and suffering damages are seldom calculated using the per diem technique by insurance companies. A cash amount per day of damages (usually your lost income or wages) is assigned, multiplied by the days your injuries kept you from working.

Time Limits for Personal Injury Lawsuits

Be aware that there are time constraints for initiating a personal injury case to recover damages for injuries and losses sustained in a car accident. Time limits for filing civil cases vary by state. If you have been injured and want to seek compensation, you may want to speak with a local personal injury attorney to be sure you do not miss any applicable deadlines.

Non-economic damages might include physical injuries affected by pain and mental anguish

According to recent data on road safety, almost 4.4 million people get injuries yearly due to car accidents, necessitating emergency medical care. Although medical care costs are easy to calculate, what about compensation for the physical or emotional trauma or distress you have had due to the incident? Even after receiving medical treatment, specific injuries might leave you with chronic pain and limit your ability to engage in life fully.

Non-monetary damages include pain and suffering. The term “non-economic damages” refers to losses that cannot be quantified in monetary terms. Non-economic injuries, compared to medical costs or car repairs, are very variable. Hence, you should consult a Colorado Springs car accident lawyer after a car crash since it is difficult to put a price on non-economic losses.

Who Calculates Pain and Suffering?

Your Colorado Springs car accident attorney and the insurance company will determine the monetary value of your pain and suffering. Yet, they often use other strategies.

Your Colorado Springs car accident attorney will assess how much your injury settlement has diminished your standard of living. This information is then converted into a monetary amount and compared to other cases with injuries of a similar kind. Although this may seem arbitrary, it is because there is no absolute method to quantify the dollar value of a life lost in this fashion.

Yet, the insurance provider is more likely to rely on a computer program to develop a figure. They input your injury-related factors into a computer. After that, the computer will provide a monetary value. A Colorado Springs car accident lawyer’s fee is likely more than the insurance company’s.

The insurance company’s estimate is often closer to an “average” for injuries like yours. At the same time, your Colorado Springs car accident lawyer will utilize your unique circumstances to argue that your injury has a more severe effect.

Don’t Let Insurance Companies Underestimate Your Pain and Suffering 

You can not count on insurance firms to help you. They have no responsibility or motivation to compensate you for your pain and suffering after a catastrophic car accident that was not your fault. Instead, they will make a lowball offer, hoping you will take it. Never take the first offer or law firm you get. Instead, you should immediately go to a Colorado Springs car accident lawyer to negotiate a settlement that adequately compensates you for your serious injuries.

According to 9-3-33 of the Official Code of Colorado Annotated (CRS), you have two years from the date of your car accident to bring a car accident claim for pain and suffering. The sooner you start figuring out how much money you have lost and constructing your case following an auto accident, the higher your car accident victims’ settlement amount will be.

How Does a Final Amount Get Agreed On?

The insurance company and your Colorado Springs car accident lawyer will usually negotiate until a satisfactory settlement amount to both parties is reached. If you want compensation for your injuries, the insurance adjuster your Colorado Springs car accident attorney must demonstrate the extent of those injuries and the validity of your claim. They will likely give you a fair settlement if you have a good chance of winning in court.

In most cases, the steps outlined above will be sufficient to resolve the dispute without resorting to legal action. A trial may be your best option if you and the insurance company cannot agree.

The jury will decide your final compensation amount. Yet, jurors in certain counties tend to be more lenient, while juries in others tend to be more strict. You should consult a Colorado Springs car accident lawyer to learn the specifics of your car accident case and their impact on the likelihood of success at trial.

Contact Warrior Car Accident Lawyers

Compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering may be available if you or a loved one were hurt in a Colorado Springs car accident caused by another driver’s carelessness.

Suppose you have been in a Colorado Springs car accident. In that case, the attorneys at Warrior Car Accident Lawyers will help you figure out who is at blame for bodily injury and how much money you are owed for your injuries. Talking to a Colorado Springs car accident lawyer about your lawsuit would be best. Since we are here for you, we will not turn away from challenging instances of accident injuries.