Personal injury settlements are packages for recovery compensation given after a personal injury loss. These settlements come after a car accident, trip and fall, or other type of injury. If you have an accident that is the fault of someone else, you would be in a position to bring an action against that individual or company for reimbursement. If the other party is deemed at fault in a lawsuit, then the person or company will pay you back for your losses and damages.
What Are You Due in a Personal Injury Settlement?
It is possible to think about your personal injury settlement in rational terms. You first need to be in the right position to recover a loss of damages or personal injury case. If you have been injured, and someone has been at fault for your injury, you can recover compensation for your injuries. You need to talk to an attorney about your claim to ensure that you will be reimbursed for every penny you have lost regarding your injuries.
Personal Injury Settlements Come in a Package Deal
Your personal injury package will include everything that can be wrong with you as a result of the accident you experienced. Your ability to be reimbursed for your losses will depend on your ability to prove your losses to an insurance company or anyone responsible for paying you for those losses. You must be able to prove your:
- Lost wages
- Personal injury
- Medical bills
- Loss of time away from family
- Lowered quality of life
- Pain suffered after the accident
- Trauma associated with the loss
- Personal damages sustained in the accident
- Extra expenses expected in the future because of the loss
If you cannot prove these losses, you will have an uphill battle to recover your compensation. For example, if you are in a car accident as a passenger, and you sign a waiver by the EMTs and refuse care at the accident scene, it will be hard later to say you were injured. Let’s look at that scenario for a moment. If you are in an accident, and the EMTs are called, they always offer to check out everyone involved in the loss at the scene of the crash. The reason is that people who are injured often don’t realize it or could be in post-accident shock.
If you refuse care after they ask to check you over, they assume you know your own mind, but they will make you sign a waiver to that effect. This is to prove that they thought in their best judgment that you be given medical help, but you refused it. It is very difficult later to claim an injury when you refused care. The moral of the story: don’t refuse care at the scene if there is even the slightest chance you could have been injured and didn’t know it.
Your Personal Injury Claim Dissected
Your personal injury claim can be for a variety of injuries. The possibilities of injuries are almost endless. You can claim an injury based on:
- Being in a car crash
- Premise’s liability
- Slip and fall
- Work injuries
- Dog bites or attacks
- Unsafe work environments
- Product liability claims
- Medical errors
- Someone hitting your car
- Being injured on vacation
- Bus driver liability
- Limo/Taxi/Rideshare driver assault
- Pedestrian hit by a car
- Motorcycle accident
- Faulty equipment at work accident
A personal injury can arise from any accident or any combination of accidents. When you have a personal injury, you need to take the steps necessary to heal from your injuries. Often, there may be out-of-pocket expenses for your medical bills associated with your accident. These expenses will be unexpected, and you will need to be reimbursed for the expenses as soon as possible. But it is critical that you don’t rush the process. Or you might miss out on a full recovery compensation package for forgetting to add an expense that you are incurring in the future.
Your Damages and Losses
The addition to your personal injury claim should include all of your damages and losses. In addition, you should be mindful of any expense that you have had to incur on account of your accident. This will include hiring people to do chores or other errands for you as you heal. This counts even if you used to do these activities for yourself.
Future Medical Expenses
It can be tricky to determine what your future medical expenses might be later. This is where it pays to talk to an attorney. Often the diagnosis for your injury will provide a clue about your future medical expenses. For example, if you have an injury and need surgery for it in the future, you will need reimbursement for the upcoming surgery. This is the case even if the surgery is scheduled well into the future.
Reimbursement for Lost Wages
Being away from your job can be an annoyance, but it is necessary for you to start the process to heal completely after your accident, loss, or damage claim. You need to keep track of your medical bills and expenses and your days off from work. You need to note everything associated with any lost wages that you might have from this loss. There may be lost wages, lost opportunities, and loss of commission. These expenses can be shown to be solid expenses, as long as you can prove that you would have received this compensation but for having been involved with the accident.
Ask Yourself, “Is This All I Need?”
Before settling out your personal injury settlement, you need to ask yourself if anything has been forgotten about your claim. A final settlement is meant to be just that, the “last call” for medical bills, personal expenses, and everything associated with the accident. Therefore, you will need to reasonably extrapolate out the expenses that will continue to reoccur and make sure you will get paid now for those expenses taking place for sure in the future.
Understand That This Is a Final Settlement
If you try to settle out your case without an attorney, it will be a big mistake. If you settle with an insurance company and forget to ask for all of the money you will need for your medical expenses, you will have forfeited that money. You will have left it forevermore sitting right there on the table. Attorneys are knowledgeable as to know how to settle large recovery claims for money. They don’t miss anything and are very thorough in helping you win the largest settlement possible. If you don’t hire an attorney, you will wish that you had, and then it will be too late.
When you have been the victim of a personal injury in any circumstance, give our injury and accident attorneys a call. We will work hard to get you the compensation that you deserve in every case. If you have been in an accident and have a claim for personal injuries, you need to give us a call at (470) 323-8779. We look forward to hearing from you today.
