Adequate evaluation and assessment of your personal injury case is important. Your Orange County personal injury attorney is best-equipped to arrive at the approximate value of your claim for compensation. The answer is simple. Your Anaheim personal injury lawyer will calculate your case value depending on your damages as they affected and continue to affect you financially, physically, and psychologically.
To arrive at such an approximate value, your attorney will aggregate your cumulative damages and will present to the insurance company a settlement demand for such value. This value will depend on:
- The severity and permanency of your injury
- Total amount of your economic (special) damages, e.g. medical bills, property damage, etc.
- Non-economic (general) damages like pain, suffering and mental anguish
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What are Compensatory Damages?
Most of the damages come under the compensatory category. It means that the defendant is responsible for paying compensation to the plaintiff (you) for whatever damage defendant caused you. Some of the compensatory damages are easily quantifiable. These are the damages to property, rental charges, wage loss, medical billings, etc. However, it becomes difficult when you need to quantify the pain or the suffering that you go through as a result of the injury caused by the accident.
Here are some of the common past and future compensatory damages:
- Medical bills
- Loss of income
- Damage to property
- Emotional suffering
- Loss of consortium (relationship between spouses)
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How long does it take to settle a personal injury claim?
One of the most common questions plaintiffs ask their personal injury lawyers is about the length of time needed to finish the case. The answer also lies in the size of the personal injury case. If your claim is rather small, the case may resolve at an average of 6 to 8 months. If, however, the injury is significant and the claim is high, the case must be quickly filed in court and it may take up to 2 years (or less) from the time of filing.
Here are three factors which largely influence how quickly (or slowly) your case settles or concludes:
- Complex legal and factual issues related to the case
- Severe and/or permanent (continuous) damages
- Ongoing unfinalized medical treatment
These are the main reasons why certain personal injury cases take longer times to conclude. If you opt for a quick sizable settlement, you will not receive 100% value of your case. It is to your best interest to contact an Orange County personal injury lawyer who can tell more about the risks and losses associated with a quick but not enough settlement.
How to claim compensation for personal injury?
The insurance claim policy follows certain steps. One needs to follow these steps to make sure that they claim the personal injury compensation properly. Here are certain steps that you need to follow.
Firstly, in case you believe someone else is responsible for your accidental damages, you need to find out if that person or company is covered by liability insurance or not. It is also possible that the person who hit you doesn’t have any liability insurance, and in that case, if you have uninsured motorist coverage, you will recover. In such a case, you need to claim the uninsured motorist coverage from your own insurance company, and it will not adversely affect your insurance premium rates because it’s fault-based and the accident was not your fault.
The second thing you need to do is NOT to talk with the claim adjuster, your attorney will. Once after you file the claim, the adjuster will contact you. One thing you need to remember that is you do not need to speak to him. Tell him to call your attorney. You must not discuss the facts of your case and try to say only those things which will not damage your claim value (such as the location of your car to prepare repair estimate). Let your attorney handle this.
Once treatment is finished and the case is ready for demand before filing in court, the personal injury attorney will present a comprehensive documented demand to the insurance adjuster. Afterwards, the negotiations process starts and the adjuster will offer you money. However, it will depend on you to make the final decision. You can ask for more. It will be better to hire a personal injury lawyer, who can help you in the negotiation process.
If the insurance company does not offer a fair settlement, then you need to go to court and a personal injury attorney can do that on your behalf.
Is money from a personal injury lawsuit taxable?
Often clients have this question in their mind: Is the personal injury compensation amount taxable or not?
Generally, compensation for physical injury is not taxable income. However, there are exceptions such as punitive damages, wage loss, etc. In court, the verdict will be pronounced separately between compensatory damages and punitive damages.
Emotional injury may be taxable income. Hiring a personal injury lawyer will ensure that he will try to get you the maximum compensation you are entitled and advise on the taxability of your various types of compensation.
Concluding Words
Over here, you got the answers to different questions related to personal injury case worth. In case you have any doubt or you need any help, please contact our personal injury lawyer in Orange County.
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