When you are involved in a car accident, you can suffer economic damages (financial losses, such as lost wages and medical bills) and non-economic ones, including the pain and suffering you experience because of the accident and injury.
When filing a case against the other driver, you should claim pain and suffering to be compensated for the distress you may suffer. Here’s what you should know:
What is pain and suffering?
Pain and suffering is the physical and mental anguish you suffer from an accident. This pain significantly affects your life. Examples include aches, limitation on activities, scarring, depression, anxiety, loss of quality of life, loss of enjoyment, sexual dysfunction and potential shortening of life.
How is it calculated?
It’s difficult to quantify pain and suffering. However, adjustor often use two main formulas to calculate it. They are:
The multiplier method
With the multiplier method, the court will multiply your pain by the total economic damage. After considering certain factors, including the severity of your injuries, your recovery and the impacts of the injuries on your daily life, the insurance adjuster will assign your pain a number between 1 and 5.
For instance, if they assign three as your level of pain and the compensation for economic damages is $2,000, you will receive $6,000 in pain and suffering.
Per-diem method
With this formula, the insurance adjuster will assign an appropriate daily rate. Coming up with this rate can be challenging, but adjusters sometimes choose a typical day’s wage for the victim. They then multiply that number by the number of days that a victim had to suffer during their recovery period.
You should claim pain and suffering when you are injured in an accident. With legal guidance, you should receive just compensation.