If you are the victim of a gruesome or mild car accident, you should hold the guilty party responsible. It is your right to receive due compensation for your troubles, including damage to the car or bodily injuries.
Lawyers claim that one of the most common questions from car accident victims is how much they can get in compensation. The truth of the matter is that it depends.
There are plenty of factors influencing how car accident settlements are calculated, including:
Insurance Coverage
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The Insurance Policies of each car involved in the accident significantly matter when it comes to the settlement a victim of the accident will receive. Each policy will have minimum and maximum limits meaning that there are the minimum and maximum amounts the insurance policy will pay in case of a car accident.
Therefore, even if a driver may have insurance, their policy may not pay enough to cover all your medical bills or car damage. You could also be uninsured or underinsured, which would make getting compensation a serious challenge.
The insurance companies will also hire negotiators whose aim is to reduce the amount of every settlement.
Proving Liability
Another factor that will heavily influence a car accident settlement amount is the ability to prove liability. You must verify that the guilty party was liable for the accident for the law to require them to compensate you.
Such a case is where a car accident attorney will prove valuable. An attorney from atlcaraccidentlawyer.com will help you prove that the other party was liable. The lawyer will use their skills, experience, and resources to provide evidence to prove liability.
An attorney will show you empathy and be your foremost advocate in a car accident case. The attorney will prove negligence on the other party’s case and negotiate the settlement agreement to ascertain you get the best deal possible.
If the other driver can also prove liability on your part, your settlement amount will reduce.
Damage Caused
The effects of the car accident will determine how much a settlement amount is. It is especially so in terms of injuries or illnesses, which often incur the highest cost. However, damage to the car will also be considered.
The guilty party’s insurance company may offer you a lump sum payment after the accident to help you pay your medical bills. The issue is that you cannot know the full extent of the accident’s effect on your health.
Future treatment of car accident injuries and illnesses is often necessary, which means you will incur medical expenses for a long time. Hence, you should get medical treatment as soon as possible after the accident to ascertain the cost of medical bills.
The damage may also impede your ability to work. If you cannot work, you cannot generate the income that you and your family need. Unless you are a stock market investor who can earn passive income for years from your investments, your ability to work affects the settlement significantly.
Average Settlement Amount
Now that we know the most crucial factors affecting a car accident settlement, we can answer what an average car accident settlement amount is.
What you should know is that every case is unique, so even though two cases might have the exact settlement amount, the circumstances that led to that figure will vary widely.
You should also know that the settlement amount will depend on whether there were any physical injuries to anyone or damage to the car.
According to the National Transport Safety Board, the average car accident settlement with bodily injuries was about $15,000.
The average settlement for accidents that only involved vehicle damage was about $3,000.
In conclusion, the process of arriving at a settlement amount after a car accident is intricate and involving serious deliberation. The amounts vary widely depending on the factors above. Since every case is different, do not expect your settlement amount to be near the average amount.
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