Ensuring You Receive Full Compensation After an Accident at Nooh Theatre

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2. Ensuring You Receive Full Compensation After an Accident

Any type of accident resulting in injuries can leave you with unexpected expenses. Suddenly, you’re facing medical costs and possible property repair or replacement bills. 

Most accident victims are entitled to file a claim to recover compensation for these and other losses. However, you also want to ensure your settlement amount is enough to cover all of your bills. 

Maximizing your recoverable damages post-accident is something that can take some time but the end result is usually worth the effort. This is especially true when your compensation is enough to cover all of your post-accident-related expenses.
Tips On Maximizing Your Post-Accident Compensation
So, how do you go about maximizing the potential compensation you can receive after being involved in an accident? You can follow a few steps to help protect and maximize your claim’s value.
Get Immediate Medical Care
Not every accident results in visible injuries, and even bruises can take a while to appear. However, even if you feel fine you may still have internal injuries. These types of injuries can take a few days or even weeks to start showing noticeable signs and symptoms.

Making an immediate appointment with a medical professional is not only taking care of your health, but it’s also providing evidence to help support your injury claim. You can’t claim injuries without providing medical evidence. 

Injuries are often a large part of an accident claim. While you don’t want to mislead the insurance adjuster, you do want to receive full compensation for your injuries. This means providing things like your medical records, bills, receipts, and even testimony from healthcare experts.

If your injuries require long-term or lifetime care, a medical expert is usually necessary to help ensure you receive compensation to cover this ongoing expense.
Gather Evidence
As the individual filing the personal injury claim, the burden of proof is on you. This means you must prove the at-fault party’s actions are considered negligent. 

The cornerstone of almost all personal injury claims is negligence. If you can’t show the other party’s actions are reckless, there’s a good chance you can’t recover compensation for your damages.

Gathering evidence isn’t a full-time job and you shouldn’t try to turn it into a temporary career. Your bills, receipts, repair estimates and medical records are examples of evidence you should have ready to submit to the insurance company.

If your injuries aren’t severe enough to warrant a ride to the ER in an ambulance, you can gather some evidence at the accident scene. All you need is your cell phone or any other handheld device with a camera feature. Take pictures of any damage to your property. 

If you’re involved in a car accident, get some pictures of where your vehicle ended up. The position of your vehicle can help support your version of the accident. If you’re in a state that follows comparative negligence guidelines, proving fault can help maximize the value of your post-accident claim.

Comparative negligence allows for more than one individual to be responsible for the accident. If you’re partially to blame for the accident, your compensation amount is reduced by your assigned percentage of the blame.

While you’re gathering evidence, check for the presence of any surveillance cameras. Your personal injury attorney can collect the footage and use the video to help ensure you’re not assigned blame for the accident. 

You should also get contact information from any witnesses but don’t discuss the accident. The other party’s insurance provider is going to interview the same witnesses and you don’t want your comments used to try and reduce your claim’s overall value.
Calculate the Value of Your Claim
Your personal injury claim will probably list both economic and non-economic damages. Calculating the value of your economic damages is usually pretty simple. Grab your bills, receipts, and estimates, along with a calculator. Add everything up and this is the total of your economic damages.

Now on to your non-economic damages, and these aren’t as easy to calculate. Even though placing a monetary value on your non-economic damages can be a pain, it’s something you don’t want to omit from a personal injury claim. Non-economic damages help maximize the value of your post-accident claim. So, what are non-economic damages?

Non-economic damages are things like your pain, suffering, and mental anguish. Since you don’t have bills or receipts to work with, your attorney can use either the per diem or multiplier method. 

Both methods are accepted by insurance companies and the court if your claim turns into a personal injury lawsuit. Which method is best suited for your claim often depends on the insurance company. 

Most attorneys use both methods to calculate non-economic damages. This way they’re ready with a counteroffer if the insurance adjuster refuses to settle the initial claim total.
The Per Diem Method
To better illustrate what’s being discussed, here's a quick look at the formulas for the per diem and multiplier methods:

The per diem method takes the number of days you experienced pain from your injuries. This number is multiplied by the total of your economic damages. So, if you’re in pain for 100 days and your economic losses total $100.000, the total value of your claim is,

100 (days you experienced pain) x 100,000 (value of your economic losses) = $10,000,000. This is the total value of your personal injury claim.
Multiplier Method
The multiplier method also looks at the total of your economic losses and assigns your pain a number between 1.5 to 5. So, if your pain is a 5 and your economic losses total $100,000, your formula looks like,

$100,000 (value of your economic losses) x 5 (number representing your pain) = $500,000. This is the total value of your claim.

You can also see why it’s a good idea to be ready with both claim values. You probably have a better chance of receiving $500,000 compared to $10,000,000. However, don’t automatically reduce the value of your claim if you feel you deserve the higher settlement amount. You don’t want to be left with outstanding expenses after settling your injury claim.
Maximize the Value of Your Accident Claim
To help ensure you receive fair compensation for damages related to your accident, working with an experienced personal injury attorney is a wise decision. 

Your attorney can gather crucial evidence, negotiate with insurance companies, and accurately calculate the value of your claim, all while you focus on your recovery. Their expertise can make a significant difference in securing the compensation you deserve and relieving you of the legal burden.