So you got in an injury and your doctor and physical therapist has finally release you to go back to work and get on with your life, this sounds great, but the only problem is you now have to sit down with your adjuster who is probably not going to be very fair to you. Dealing with personal injury claims is not the easiest thing to do, especially if the person who caused the injury has hired a great lawyer and you have not done the same
If someone else was responsible for your injury, you have to gather up something called “special damages.” Basically what this means is you need to figure out exactly how much your medical bills were, how much money you lost due to being out of work, and anything else that went into helping you get recovered. When trying to figure out your personal injury claims, you need to take into account many things, these things include:
LIABILITY: Let’s be honest here, when it comes to car accidents it is usually pretty obvious whose fault it was, no surprise there. In fact, a recent study that came out showed that 9 out of 10 accidents that happen on the road it is clear to tell whose fault it was by just looking at the situation. So if someone is trying to say it wasn’t their fault and you know it was, don’t believe them.
To be honest being doubtful about this really doesn’t hold any value. Now if it was your fault you will be asked to sing some things, you need to make sure you and your lawyer site down for a while reading all the small print before you go ahead and go out and sign these documents. If you are asked to pay more money to go over these things with your lawyer don’t pay him, lawyers are getting way to greedy these days. The only time you should pay him is if you actually win the court case. We have an article on how to go about hiring a lawyer with a no win no fee solicitor policy so you should definitely check that out.
TYPE OF INJURY: Only about fifteen percent of all accidents involve more than one person getting injured. If the accident you have been involved in has more than one injury you should hire a lawyer. On the other hand, if it is just you who had minor injuries such as light bruises and a whiplash you are probably best off handling the situation on your own.
TYPE OF PERSON YOU ARE: I know this isn’t always fair for me to say but I am going to say it because it is the truth. Chances are good you are just a normal person who lives a normal life. Some of you might be well above average some of you might be slightly below average. However, if you have a criminal record for any reason at all it might be a bit more difficult for you to win the case, so you will have to spend a bit more time putting together your case
THE TYPE OF PERSON YOUR OPENENT IS: Just like we said above, the same is true with your opponent. If he looks good and has no criminal record you are going to have to fight a little harder to beat him. For example, if he is a really rich doctor who has a great family and no criminal record in the past, he is going to be a tough opponent. On the other hand, when it comes to personal injury claims you are going to have a much better chance at beating him if he has some sort of criminal past.
DAMAGES: You need to add up all the damages that were done to not only your vehicle but also done to your body. Add up all the expenses that you had to pay in order to pay your medical bills and all the expenses you have lost because of this accident.
MEDICAL SPECIAL DAMAGE EXPENSES: There are a ton of medical special damage expenses. If you don’t know what these are it is basically anything that causes you to lose money while you are injured. For example, your hospital stay and anything that cost you money while you were staying in the hospital, the bandaids they had to give you, the lotion, the physical therapy. Think of everything you had to pay for medically, that is your medical special damage expenses.
I know when you are adding these things up it is easy to get lazy and just write down the big things because you assume that when it comes to personal injury claims that is all the people care about anyways. However, this is far from the truth. The smallest thing can be the one thing that proves you had to suffer (So one dollar can literally turn into 100 dollars. Just make sure everything is included).
NON-MEDICAL SPECIAL DAMAGES: Again it is important to write down everything here and not leave anything out! This means you need to write down your vacation time that was lost, not being able to spend time with the family because of your injury, not being able to go out and play catch with your children, not being able to go to work. Make sure you write down it all.
LOST WAGES: This one is super important so you need to make sure you pay attention very carefully. How long have you been out of work? How much money did it cost you? Were you about to get a bonus then lost it? What about a promotion?
If you have a job that pays commissions or you go overtime a lot, you might have lost a bunch of money. It is important you get a letter from your boss explaining how much money you usually make when the commissions and bonuses are added in. If you are self employed and don’t have a boss, pull out all this info from your records and have it for proof.
We need to be honest we all get paid more than just what our salary is because we get bonuses throughout the year. You should be able to be paid back for even more than just what your salary is worth because they aren’t taking into account your bonuses and such!
Your time off shouldn’t count as your vacation time or sick days either so don’t let it! A lot of lawyers will try to prove that is all it is but it isn’t. You should still have the rights to your sick days.
IF YOU’RE SELF-EMPLOYED: You need to do a little extra work if you are self employed, if you saved a copy of your records then great! If not you need to go find them. I know many people don’t like the idea of submitting documents to the court, especially private ones like that but you can trust us when we say they are secure and you won’t have to worry about any of the information to get out. To be totally honest when the case goes live and you want to prove something that truly is your only way to prove it.
TWO CRITICAL AREAS REGARDING LOST WAGES: Did the injury cause you to lose a certain position in your job? Did the injury only allow you to work part time now instead of full time? If you answered yes to either of those questions, you need to make sure you talk to your lawyer right now because this could be a factor that causes you to win automatically.
IT’S CRUCIAL FOR YOU TO KNOW: You might have been able to go to work and get paid, but you need to know if you lost your position you can still claim this as lost wages
PROPERTY DAMAGE EXPENSES: If your property has been damaged, write it down. From things as big as cars to things as little as clothes you need to make sure you get it all written down. If you come prepared with these documents when you go to court you will be much better off and have a greater chance at winning.
YOUR AGE: If you had young children with you and they got injured you actually have a better chance at winning. People who are between 18 and 50 usually don’t stand as good of a chance because they are considered to be healthy and their bodies are able to heal naturally and quickly. If you are over sixty you actually stand a lot better chance of winning because your bodies can no longer heal as quickly as they use to be able to.
MOST IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Many of the lawyers who are going to be against you will do anything to get you to admit something. It is extremely important you don’t answer any questions around them if your lawyer is not present. If you do they can use this information in court against you. We have seen people lose cases because they talked to the other lawyer. Don’t show him any of your documents and don’t answer his questions as to whether or not you have a certain document.
All you need to know is that if you lost money because of this you truly do have the right to get it back. Personal injury claims don’t have to be as hard as many people make them. Just follow the advice given above and you should be fine.