Know the Value of Your Personal Injury Claim

Suffering a personal injury can be traumatic and life-changing. A serious fall, dog bite, or car accident can throw your life into perspective, force you out of the workplace, and cause financial turmoil. That’s why it’s so important to understand your legal options after an injury. If someone else is liable for your injuries, you could be entitled to compensation. However, getting what you deserve depends largely on your ability to prove your case and your losses.

The team at Gardner Law Group helps clients throughout Biloxi and Pascagoula seek justice after a personal injury. Ready to take the first step? Call us at 228-436-6555 to set up a consultation immediately.

Determining the Proper Value

Valuing your accident may feel strange. When you’ve lost time, work opportunities, and quality of life, putting a monetary value on those losses can feel inappropriate. However, this is the only way to get the settlement you deserve. There are many elements that go into a fair valuation, including:

The nature of your injuries: The more severe and life-changing your injuries are, the more your accident may be worth financially. Insurance companies look at how painful your injuries generally are, how they may impact your ability to earn a living, and how they can affect your quality of life.

Your real financial losses: This includes your time away from work, including lost promotions and earning opportunities. Most people in the United States live paycheck to paycheck; losing a week, a month, or more of income can be financially devastating.

Unpaid expenses: Medical bills, repair costs, and other injury-related bills may start to pile up. These contribute to the value of your claim.
Pain and suffering: Insurance companies do lend some weight to pain and suffering. As is the case with everything, the severity of your injuries drives the value of this part of your settlement.

Your Current Losses

You’ll need to consider your current losses while trying to figure out the value of your personal injury claim. It’s easy to gloss over or minimize some losses, such as time spent driving to and from appointments, over-the-counter medical supplies, and time away from work. It’s especially easy to forget time off work if you receive PTO. However, you could still be entitled to compensation for that—so it’s important to bring it up to your attorney.

Calculating Future Expenses

If your injuries are severe, catastrophic, or permanent, you’ll likely have ongoing expenses as you learn to live with your new normal. It is essential that you count these into your calculations. For many, these expenses are the largest part of a settlement. If you’re expected to need medical care for your injury for the rest of your life, that can easily add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you are permanently unable to work because of your injuries, you could be losing out on millions of dollars of income. The person liable for your injuries must be held accountable for these huge losses.

Your Biloxi personal injury attorney may work with expert witnesses to understand your future losses, as these calculations require an understanding of your future medical needs, how the cost of healthcare will likely change over the years, what you’d be earning for the rest of your career, and what benefits you will lose because of your job loss.

How Fair Valuation Can Help You During Negotiations

Having concrete numbers that outline the value of your personal injury claim can give you a solid foundation for negotiations. The insurance company will do their own research and present numbers that are extremely low—this is because their goal is to pay you as little as possible. But if your attorney comes to the table with solid numbers and reasoning for those numbers, you’re more likely to get what you actually deserve.

Start Your Personal Injury Claim with Gardner Law Group

When you’re ready to start your personal injury claim, the Gardner Law Group is ready to help you. You can call our Biloxi office at 228-436-6555, call our Pascagoula office at 228-762-6555, or reach out to us online to get started.