Looking for a personal injury settlement calculator? They also go by the names of personal injury claim calculator and personal injury damages calculator.
If you are looking for any of the above, the best advice I can give you is STOP! I’m serious. As an attorney, I can tell you that it’s a bad idea for several reasons.A Personal Injury Settlement Calculator Creates Expectations
First, any personal injury settlement calculator is likely to give you an inaccurate number. It’s true that insurance companies have to value certain losses. For example, they may have in-house numbers for loss of a limb, the value of a ruptured disk in the back, and they may even put a price on life. Those calculations are, however, subject to a myriad of adjustments based on individual circumstances like the amount of money you make, your past injuries, and perhaps even the question of whether or not you have ever previously been involved in a lawsuit.
Don’t Trust an Online Personal Injury Claim Calculator
No online personal injury claim calculator can be trusted. For starters, there is no way to tell what amount a jury will return in its verdict. Second, rules for compensation for personal injuries vary drastically from state to state. Finally, if you plan to use an attorney, you need to figure in your legal fees. Don’t think there will be fees because of a contingency fee agreement? Think again! An attorney can take up to 40% of your recovery. Doesn’t really seem fair does it, since you’re the one who suffered an injury and has the personal injury compensation claim?!
The best a personal injury damages calculator can give you is an average . . . but an average of what? If you don’t know the inputs, then you can’t rely on the output at all. The danger is that you will rely on those numbers as you develop expectations of your case. That’s dangerous because some of the calculator inputs might include outlandishly high or low figures. The bottom line is that you cannot trust a personal injury settlement calculator if you don’t know what the inputs are.
You Can Create Your Own Personal Injury Damages Calculator
Remember how we said earlier that insurance companies put a price on certain types of injuries? Well, it might be worth your time to avoid the personal injury settlement calculator and do some figuring on your own. Spend some time in your local law library. Law librarians are very knowledgeable and can point you in the direction of publications (or online research resources) that can help you determine a starting point for the “value” of your injury.
The next input you need for your self-made personal injury settlement calculator is an estimate of your special damages. Special damages include medical expenses, property loss (e.g. wrecked car), and lost wages. Make sure you estimate your future medical expenses and lost wages and then reduce them to a present value using commercial loan rates, because the present value of future expenses and wages is what you will need to plan for in your custom personal injury settlement calculator. . . not the full future value.
Finally, you need to determine whether or not you can include general damages in your personal injury damages calculator. General damages include very subjective elements such as pain and suffering. Because pain and suffering is subjective, is difficult to calculate, and this is the primary reason why reliance on a personal injury claim calculator is not recommended. Moreover, this is one area where insurance companies will try to rake you over the coals. It’s almost as if many insurance companies don’t believe pain and suffering exists.
But before you include general damages in your personal injury settlement calculator, you have to determine if your state permits recovery of such damages. In Florida, for example, damages for pain and suffering can only be recovered if there is a permanent injury. So before including compensation for pain and suffering in a Florida personal injury settlement calculator, you have to ask yourself if you have a permanent injury.
This can be a difficult determination, and many times it’s left for a jury decide. Juries are the ultimate unknown. There’s no way to tell what they will do . . . yet another reason to distrust online personal injury settlement calculators!