Top 5 Questions Before Using a Personal Injury Calculator
Using a personal injury calculator lets you see how much your accident claims are truly worth. Below are the top 5 questions people ask about determining the exact value of their car insurance settlement.
1. How Does the Personal Injury Calculator Work out my Auto Accident Claim?
The standard formula that is well known to be administered for auto accident injury claims is:
Pain Multiplier X Medical Payments + Loss of Income
The "pain multiplier" is a number normally between 1.5 and 5. This multiplier number is chosen depending on the extent of your car accident injuries; the more severe your injuries, the higher the multiplier.
For example, a minor injury such as a sprained neck is more inclined to get a low multiplier (1.5-3). While a far more significant and debilitating injury, such as a broken leg, would get a greater multiplier (3-5). The multiplier range might even go to larger figures (10) for much more serious and long term injuries.
The next element which is used in the claims formula is your medical bills, often called "special damages." These bills include the price of your medical treatments, visits to the hospital, ambulance ride, X-Rays, pain medicine etc.
The last thing that is included in your insurance settlement is your loss of income. This refers to the total amount of take-home pay you missed because of your injuries. For example, if you're injuries caused you to stay at home from work, then your lost total wages would equal your daily pay rate times the amount of work days you had missed.
2. When Should You Begin Using a Personal Injury Calculator?
The most appropriate time to apply the injury calculator is at the end of your medical treatment. You should always have your injuries fully diagnosed and analyzed before filing an injury claim. This gives you a more reliable estimate of your total medical bills that should be included in your final settlement.
3. Who Should Avoid Using the Personal Injury Calculator?
Many personal injury claims involve minor injuries that will not require you to instantly hire a really expensive lawyer. For these sorts of claims, you may use the injury calculator to get a rough estimate of what your car accident settlement might be worth.
Nevertheless, there are insurance claims which can't be handled without the help of a skilled injury lawyer. These kinds of auto accident claims involve more severe and long-term injuries like permanent disabilities, lost or dismembered arms or legs, frightening head injuries etc. If you were badly harmed, your best course of action is to speak to a lawyer who is comfortable with claims very similar to your particular injuries.
4. How Precise is the Personal Injury Calculator?
The injury calculator really doesn't give you the specific final settlement, but a basic estimate of just how much your injuries are worth to the insurance companies.
Most of us would argue that the injury calculator is too simplistic. That it does not cover the intricacies and subtleties of an individual's personal injury claim. Other people are quick to mention Colossus, a complicated software program used by the insurance companies to evaluate insurance claims.
Then again, the main advantage of trying the personal injury calculator is not to tell you what will be your actual settlement amount. The main advantage is to help you recognize how your specific settlement amount will be determined. The settlement calculator highlights that the range of your final settlement amount will be largely based on:
*The severeness of your injuries
*Your overall medical expenses.
*Your lost income
These are going to be the essential points in your injury settlement irrelevant of which specific software program you use.
5. Should I Use the Injury Calculator?
You will always have the option of bringing in a lawyer further down in the claims process. The safest advice is to use the settlement calculator to get a quick analysis of what your car accident claims can be worth.
Read more helpful to increase your car accident claims and personal injury settlements