After suffering an injury caused by someone else’s actions, you could face both physical and financial hardship. You may incur significant expenses for medical treatment and physical therapy. Your injuries may also prevent you from earning a living, leaving you with no way to pay your bills.
A personal injury lawsuit can provide the resources you need to cover your medical costs and living expenses. Although some lawsuits go all the way to trial, most are resolved through settlements. This route requires some negotiation, but it often provides fair compensation without the hassle of extensive litigation.
Is There An Average Settlement Amount?
You may find resources online that identify an “average” settlement amount. However, these numbers can be misleading. Law firms that publish averages typically only use their own cases since settlements are often confidential. Thus, these numbers only tell you what a particular law firm has recovered.
Even averages from insurance companies and other resources can misinform injury victims. The settlement amount for an accident depends on several factors, including the type of accident and the severity of the injuries sustained.
Factors That Affect Personal Injury Settlements
Instead of looking at average amounts, you may find it more helpful to examine the factors that may affect the settlement in your specific case. In Texas, compensation for physical harm and emotional trauma covers two types of impacts: economic and non-economic losses.
Economic damages cover the financial costs you’ve incurred due to your injuries, such as medical bills and missed paychecks. Importantly, these damages can include both past and future losses. Consequently, you may be entitled to recover compensation for future physical therapy expenses, as well as any diminished future earnings.
Non-economic damages, meanwhile, reflect the effects your injuries have had on your life, which don’t have an inherent monetary value. They include effects like physical pain, mental anguish, and disfigurement.
A settlement for these losses may hinge on the following factors:
The Severity Of Your Injuries
Generally speaking, more severe injuries require more expensive medical care.
For example, an insurance company analysis of the costs of broken bones found that the medical bills for a broken arm were $900–$1,800 without surgery and $17,150–$31,000 with surgery. Moreover, the report found that patients paid an additional $2,715 if they visited the emergency room instead of a doctor’s office.
More serious injuries also require longer recovery times and, therefore, more time away from work. Your income losses may be even more significant if you suffer permanent injuries that force you to change jobs or quit working entirely.
Conversely, temporary injuries that heal relatively quickly come with lower medical costs and have a smaller impact on earnings.
Available Insurance Coverage
Personal injury cases typically involve insurance companies. For instance, slip and fall accidents often fall under the liability coverage of business or homeowners insurance policies. Similarly, medical malpractice is covered by professional liability insurance policies.
As such, your settlement may come down to the at-fault party’s policy limits. If the limits are low, the insurer won’t have much negotiating room. Conversely, a policy with high limits will give you a much better chance of obtaining full compensation for your injuries.
Consider an example: Texas law requires all vehicle owners to carry bodily injury liability coverage in their auto insurance policies. The minimum required coverage is $30,000 per victim, up to a total of $60,000 per collision.
The Strength Of Your Evidence
With a settlement, both parties agree to end the case in exchange for a payout. The at-fault party or their insurer will be much more willing to settle if you have a strong case. For example, if you have security video footage showing the other driver running a red light, their insurer may have little ground to fight the claim.
Conversely, suppose that the other driver accused you of speeding up to make a yellow light just as they turned left across your path. Their insurer may argue that you contributed to the accident and deserve to have your compensation reduced under Texas’s modified comparative fault law. As a result, you might have to accept less to settle the case.
Call Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers For A Free Consultation With A Houston Personal Injury Lawyer
If you’ve been injured and are wondering what your personal injury case may be worth, Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers is here to help. Our firm brings over 45 years of combined experience representing injury victims and has recovered tens of millions of dollars on behalf of clients across Texas. We understand what it takes to build strong cases and negotiate with insurance companies.
Call today at (713) 500-5000 to schedule your free consultation with a Houston personal injury lawyer and learn how we can help you pursue fair compensation.
