When you’re involved in a car accident, the results can be devastating. Every incident is different, but there are some common experiences that victims go through. If you are looking to get compensation for what happened to you, you need to know what you can claim compensation for. The following categories will help you to calculate how much money you should be looking to get in compensation.
Cost of Care and Medical Expenses
The medicals bills you face after the accident can be pretty big, especially if you don’t have adequate medical insurance cover. And then there are things like specialist treatments and prescriptions that you might have to pay for during your recovery. Many people have to spend time and money on things like physiotherapy after a serious injury. And all those costs add up. Therefore, you should make a note of exactly how much money you spend on your recovery. This should include the cost of transportation to and from medical appointments. Those expenses will add up to a pretty large sum over time.
Loss of Earnings
If the injuries that you suffered during the crash are serious, you might not be able to go to work straight away. For many people, this can mean incurring a loss of income, which can be very serious. You are certainly supposed to include this loss of income when you are calculating how much compensation you’re going to try to get. The money you eventually do get will then be able to go towards the things you couldn’t pay for during your recovery, such as paying the bills and rent. Not having a steady stream of income can be completely disastrous for an ordinary family.
Physical Suffering
It’s only right that you should be entitled to compensation when someone causes you physical injury. This is the most common result of a car accident. Many people suffer whiplash when their car is hit by another car, and they are jolted forward. But there are, obviously, even more serious consequences for some people. This physical suffering is something that should be factored in when you are deciding how much compensation you’re going to try to get. Suffering and experiencing pain can be hard to put a monetary value on though. It could be a good idea to hire a car accident lawyer to help you out with this.
Psychological Impact
It’s not just physical suffering that people can go through after an accident though. It’s also common for people to experience a psychological impact. This can manifest itself in many different ways. It could be something like a fear of driving caused by what you experienced during the accident. Or you could have more severe problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. This is something that demands medical attention to put right. It’s not necessarily cheap to see a counsellor and have these problems fixed by someone who knows what they’re doing though. And the long-term psychological impact can be significant, even with the right treatment.