It is difficult to determine or decide “fair” compensation for a pain and suffering claim. The fair calculation of pain and suffering for one person will not be applied to another person’s claim. Even two people who are in the same accident, and have the same injury, will have different experiences of pain and suffering. First, let’s review what pain and suffering are. Then we will discuss why it is a valid part of your claim for damages after a loss or car accident.
Pain and suffering are the part of your injury that you experience but may not be able to put your finger on why you are hurting. Pain and suffering can be directly associated with the pain from your personal injury. At the same time, pain and suffering can be completely separate from your physical pain. Pain and suffering can be in your head, in your heart, in your body, or in your mind. These are all valid ways to describe pain and suffering.
Are Pain and Suffering All in Your Head?
Pain and suffering can be felt anywhere in your body. This means that yes, it can be felt in your head too. Even if you don’t technically have a head trauma associated with your car crash, you can feel pain and suffering as a “mental” hurt. Your pain and suffering part of your injury might be emotional, a trauma, a feeling of doom or dread, or a feeling of being slightly depressed after your accident. Pain and suffering are real “pains,” and many people experience some pain and suffering after a car accident or personal injury.
How Is the Amount for Pain and Suffering Determined?
Pain and suffering are calculated as part of your overall settlement package with an insurance company after a loss. Your medical bills and loss receipts for the damages to your car are bills that have a firm receipt. If you pay a certain amount for medicine or have a surgical procedure to help you heal from your personal injury, then you have an invoice or a medical bill for that. But it is different from putting a monetary value on your pain and suffering. Just because it is a little harder to figure out the monetary value of your pain and suffering does not make it any less of a valid claim.
Insurance companies typically use a calculation or formula to determine a ballpark for pain and suffering after a personal injury. Then, the insurance company expects the attorney to claim pain and suffering as part of the final settlement package. The attorney will talk to you about your feelings about the pain and suffering you are experiencing. Then, the attorney will submit your pain and suffering monetary value that you have calculated to the insurance company. This is why it is critical that you are working with an attorney on these types of cases. You do not want to “wing it” when it comes to figuring out this key piece of your settlement package with an insurance company.
What Do Pain and Suffering Look Like?
Well, that is the tricky part of the matter. Pain and suffering look different for every person. If you have had a serious injury from a car accident or a slip and fall, you will also experience pain and suffering. But what does that look like? If you have had a car accident and were seriously injured in the crash, your pain and suffering could be tied to your injury.
If, for instance, you hurt your back in the car crash, then your pain and suffering might be that you now can’t do the everyday chores and responsibilities that you need to do easily. You may be in constant pain in your back while healing from your injury. You might feel frustrated, or angry, or sad that you cannot pursue your active life now because of having to heal from your car crash.
You may also feel that you cannot take care of your family to the same extent. You might experience that your lifestyle has changed and that your quality of life has diminished seriously, all because of having been involved in a past car accident. One or all of these scenarios combined are real to the person who is recovering from a car accident. The scenarios are perfect examples of pain and suffering.
How Does the Insurance Company Put a Value on Pain and Suffering?
The insurance company will use calculations and formulas to determine pain and suffering for our case. This calculation is not a perfect or exact science. Pain and suffering will affect people on an individual basis. For example, if two twins were in a car accident, each twin would experience the accident and crash differently. Therefore, their pain and suffering awards in their settlement package may vary widely because they are individuals! The insurance companies look at the personal injury, the expected recovery, the residual effects of the car accident on the person, the amount of time it takes to heal, and the number of days the person needs to feel whole again. All of these factors and more are included in pain and suffering awards as part of the total settlement package.
Does Pain and Suffering Equal a Loss of Zeal for Life?
Managing the experience of pain and suffering can mean that you have lost some aspect of your zeal for life. What does this mean? People all have a set point where they can feel that they live a “normal” life. That life is going well, everything is happening as it should, and that there is nothing out of the ordinary for these individuals daily. As soon as there is a car crash, their lives suddenly and sometimes permanently change. These people who have experienced a loss, car crash, or trauma now feel that their lives are diminished in some way.
How much a person’s life has changed will be determined by the person’s attitude towards the changes. For example, let’s say that Person A and Person B are in a car accident. Person A and Person B both have soft tissue injuries, with whiplash at the neck. Person A manages the injury by resting, staying home, and relaxing. But Person B still has many responsibilities at home, at work as a manager at a highly stressful job, with children to care for, send to school, and feed, which causes more stress.
In the larger scheme of things, Person A’s pain and suffering are possibly less than Person B’s. This is true, even though they both had the same injury in the same car crash. If Person B is never able to stop and recover from the car accident and continues to feel stressed in life, never finding a balance again, then Person B’s pain and suffering will be very high indeed.
If you are wondering what is a fair compensation amount to receive for your pain and suffering after a loss, call the injury and accident attorneys at the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm. When you have been the victim of a personal injury in any circumstance, 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. Just call us at (470) 323-8779. We look forward to hearing from you today.
