How To Calculate Pain And Suffering Damages After A Car Accident?
Before you make an injury claim after a car accident, it is important to know how much your ‘pain and suffering'' is worth. It helps come up with a practical amount that you need to cover your injuries and damages. If you contact your insurance company, they have many different ways to calculate your pain and suffering to give your injury claim a value.
While it is easy to calculate obvious costs such as medical bills, lost wages, and car repair costs, the more subjective elements such as ‘pain and suffering'' are difficult to measure. Here, we have two commonly important methods to find pain and suffering value.
If you or a loved one were injured on an accident that wasn''t your fault, find a lawyer that will help you with your case *CLICK HERE**
Method 1: The “Multiplier�
The Multiplier method is often used by personal injury lawyers to determine pain and suffering caused due to a car accident. In this method, you multiply the total actual or economic loss by a certain number. Usually, the total sum of damage is multiplied by 3 or more. This way, you can put an amount as demand in the demand letter.
Suppose your medical bills cost $5,000, your lost wages amount to $1,000 and car repair cost has reached $2,000. The total sum becomes $8,000. Multiplying by 3, you can claim $24,000 damage in your demand letter.
However, most insurance companies regard this method as inappropriate or unjust nowadays. Today, companies rely on different software to calculate the amount based on the seriousness of the damage and other important factors in a car accident. The total amount comes out to be lower than it used to be in past years.
So, in a more serious case where you have a lot of medical damage say surgeries and operations, the multiplier multiplies the amount by 3 or 4. However, in case of minor damage or if you were also at some fault for the accident, the multiplying number is 1 or 2.
Method 2: The Daily Rate
Here is another common method to figure out pain and suffering value. In this method, a specific rate is assigned to each day you go through pain or suffering due to a car accident. In the end, it gathers up to calculate the final amount.
For instance, suppose your medical bill amounted to $5,000 and lost income of $1,000. This sums up to $6,000. However, you keep on visiting your doctor for the next month and were at medication for three months until you were able to continue with your normal life routine. If you assign a daily value of $150, the total amount for three months makes $13,500.
How to assign the daily value?
You can do so by calculating how much you earn each day. Suppose you earn $150 every day, then it is practical to assign a daily value of $150.
Conclusion
These two methods of calculating the pain and suffering are the most reliable and professional ones. Your insurance company or personal injury attorney can use any of these to put forward a practical demand.