A car accident is a painful, traumatic, and extremely disruptive event that nobody wants to be involved in. Unfortunately, car accidents happen more often than we would like to think. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are injured in car crashes across the United States.
An Overview of Calculating Car Accident Damages
“Damages” are the central details in car accident cases, as these are the costs and losses that a victim may be able to receive as compensation from the at-fault driver or their insurance company. Calculating damages for auto accidents can be complex, and insurers use this complexity to their advantage to settle a case as inexpensively as possible. The damages that a personal injury case focuses on are known as “compensatory damages” because the money is meant to compensate the victim for actual losses they have endured. However, the idea of “actual” damages can be tricky because a large portion of compensatory damages relates to impacts that have no set or measurable dollar values associated with them.
Economic Damages
Economic damages make up the basis of a car accident victim’s compensatory damages. These damages apply to any impact that has a measurable dollar value, including things such as:
- Medical bills (for current and future treatments)
- Lost wages or lost earning capacity
- Cost of services to replace normal household duties
- Replacement or repair costs of damaged property
Calculating Economic Damages
Economic damages are calculated by adding up all of the losses associated with an accident. This is a fairly straightforward process, but there are many damages that a victim may not even realize can include in their claim. An experienced personal injury lawyer will review all of the details of a case and ensure that each legitimate damage is considered in settlement negotiations.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are the intangible, non-monetary losses a victim suffers after an accident. These can include impacts such as:
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of consortium (impact on marital relationships)
- Loss of enjoyment of life
These damages are generally harder to calculate, as no equation will determine the dollar value for a victim’s emotional distress and other intangible losses. However, an experienced car accident attorney can help you to accurately assess both economic and non-economic damages in your case so that you can seek full compensation.
Methods for Calculating Non-Economic Damages
It’s no secret that calculating a dollar value of something as abstract as “mental anguish” can be difficult. This is why insurers are so quick to lowball settlement offers when victims attempt to claim their own. A skilled attorney can use various methods to assess the impacts that you have endured, including two common approaches: the multiplier method and the per diem method. The multiplier method involves taking the economic damages, multiplying them by a certain factor based on the severity of your auto accident, and then adding that to the economic portion of your claim. The per diem method assigns a dollar value for each day since the accident occurred until settlement or verdict to encompass all of your non-economic losses. Choosing which method to use depends on the specific circumstances of your case, and an experienced attorney can help you to determine the best approach.
