In a car collision, the injured party’s bodily and emotional injuries are considered pain and suffering. These kinds of damages are better understood by a personal injury attorney, who knows how to demonstrate them in a personal injury claim or lawsuit. Along with psychological trauma, you may endure physical pain due to the traumatic experience of a car collision. You may feel things that are foreign to you that won’t go away, and in such cases, the first thing to come to mind is to seek help and search for a ‘personal injury lawyer near me’.
What Constitutes Pain and Suffering in a Car Accident?
Physical discomfort is frequently a result of injuries sustained in auto accidents, such as broken bones or whiplash. Damages including medical expenses and lost wages may be included as compensation in personal injury claims.
Equally significant is the mental suffering you’ve experienced because of your wounds. You can continue to be plagued by memories of the accident long after your wounds have healed.
One type of mental suffering might manifest as a mental illness, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While the first shock following an accident is standard, PTSD develops when memories of the trauma do not fade.
Symptoms of PTSD:
The signs may include difficulty sleeping or nightmares, worry about driving a vehicle or riding in one, irritation or persistent discomfort, and recurrent thoughts of the collision.
How are the damages calculated?
Settlements from insurance companies are typically based on the financial toll the injury took on your life, such as medical costs or missed wages. Because they include receipts for medical care, physical therapy, medicine, and auto repairs, as well as documentation of wages from pay stubs and tax returns, and a history of time off or missed days due to injury-related appointments or problems, these claims are simpler to verify.
It can be more difficult to accurately put a tag on “noneconomic impacts” like pain and suffering. Insurance companies assess the value of pain and suffering by considering several factors, such as the degree of your injuries and whether they resulted in long-term mental anguish and pain, the seriousness of the accident and the potential for emotional distress, your daily life before the accident and also how your injury may impact your regular work, personal interests, and events moving forward, as well as supporting documentation such as witness statements and medical records.
Final thoughts:
Insurance companies sometimes initially reject your claim for pain and suffering because it lacks the tangible bills or supporting evidence that other losses possess. Due to the complexity of pursuing this kind of compensation, it is crucial to have an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side who will zealously defend your interests.
