After an Automobile or Motorcycle Accident, How Is Pain and Suffering Calculated in My PI Case?
After a motorcycle or automobile accident you know that as bad as the physical injuries are, the pain, anguish, and emotional distress caused by the accident can be even worse. There’s no way to go back in time and get rid of this pain.
However you are legally entitled to be paid monetary compensation especially if the accident was not your fault. Every insurance company and adjuster utilizes a formula for payment of bodily injury claims, including pain and suffering. This formula will be slightly different from one insurance company to the next, but it is based mostly on the amount of your medical bills, as long as those bills are considered reasonable and necessary.
For instance, most insurance companies have standard preset limits for expected medical bills and a soft tissue injury case where there are no broken bones. Many insurance companies take a medical doctor’s bills more serious than a chiropractor’s bills. If your doctor happens to charge more than other similar doctors insurance company will usually not consider these bills to be reasonable. The result is the more medical bills you does not necessarily mean the more money you get for pain and suffering.
If your medical bills come back considerably higher than what is expected by the insurance company insurance company will often figure you were either overtreated or your doctor’s charges were not reasonable, or you already have pre-existing back and neck pain. If you’re completely recovered from the accident with no residual pain and suffering the most insurance adjusters offer you without a lawyer’s help up to 150% of your medical bills as long as the bill stay below their preset limits.
If you have an experienced injury attorney representing you, the insurance company will probably eventually offer 250 to 300% of your medical bills. What would be best for you is if this personal injury attorney was able to raise the settlement offer so that not only is their contingency fee included but you would still get considerably more money that if you simply represented yourself.
If you finish your medical treatment but you’re still having pain or suffering then a good injury attorney may be able to get you 5 to 10 times or more of your medical bills or even more for pain and suffering.
Basing a formula for pain and suffering on your medical bills is truly not fair. But there has to be