How Your Settlement is Calculated For Your Colorado Springs Personal Injury Claim
Fighting a personal injury lawsuit can be stressful, scary and confusing for just about anyone not experienced in the processes and procedures involved. It gets even worse when you’re faced with terms like, “damages and compensation formula.”
All you want is to get compensated for the accident that’s caused you harm, so you can keep your life together and recover and you’re bombarded with technical-sounding terms. This particular term, however, sounds much more threatening than it is. Learn what the damages and compensation formula is, and how it figures into the settlement you’ll receive from your personal injury claim.
Damages and Compensation Formula
Every insurer and attorney has their own means to which they value the accident you’ve suffered. The formula they use is their damages and compensation formula. This formula allows the various parties involved to place an estimate on certain specific damages as well as to determine a total value.
Some costs of an injury are objective and easy to determine: medical bills and lost wages, for example, are measurable. Other costs, on the other hand, have to be estimated. These include potential future medical bills, pain and suffering, emotional trauma, potential future income and other subjective costs.
What Is the Formula?
The first thing you need to understand is, there is no standard formula for determining what your injury is worth. Every insurer and attorney has their own formula to determine how to value these varied expenses. The reason you’ll never know what the formula used by a given entity, is that it would put them at a disadvantage in negotiations.
How It Works
When the injury claim begins, you’ll issue a demand letter with your idea of how much your injury is worth. The insurance adjuster will total up the measurable costs (again, medical bills, lost wages and the like) which are known as “special damages.” They will then figure the “general damages,” or less objective ones and apply a multiplier usually ranging from 1.5 to 5, and add the two figures together. This will be their opening offer.
The multiplier is determined by the severity of a number of factors. These include how painful the injury was, how invasive and extensive the medical treatments are, the degree of evidence involved, any potential lingering physical deformities and disabilities and the length of recovery.
How a Colorado Injury Lawyer Helps
When you’re fighting for compensation, you deserve the money you’re seeking but it can be a tough uphill battle. Insurers don’t want to pay out, and they’ll use a lot of tactics to avoid it. Having the help of a Colorado injury lawyer means having someone in your corner who has experience fighting these tactics, and who may even have some insight into the formula used by a given insurer. It’s your best bet at collecting a sizable settlement.
If this has happened to you, the experienced Southern Colorado injury attorneys at Heuser & Heuser, LLP, are here to help. Give us a call for a free, no-obligation discussion about your case, and more information about how you can seek settlement for the injuries you’ve suffered.
No Fee Unless You Win
Questions Or Schedule A Free Appointment? Click To Call (719) 520-9909
No Fee Unless You Win
Questions or Schedule A free Appointment? Click to Call (719) 520-9909
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Know What My Case Is Worth?
There are a variety of things we look at when evaluating your case and determining its value. We look at how the accident occurred. We look at what sort of injuries you sustained. Do you have a permanent injury that will last the rest of your life? Are you going to have future medical bills? We look at lost wages. Did you lose your job? If you have permanent work restrictions as a result of the accident, you may not be able to find a job very easily in the future. These are some of the factors that we look at in evaluating a claim. Every case is unique and different. That’s why at our law firm, every case gets personal attention from the lawyer when it comes time to evaluate.
Why is it Important to Hire a Lawyer?
Insurance companies are in business for a reason: to make money. Anytime they are paying money on a claim, it means less money to their bottom line. They have literally hundreds of adjusters and hundreds of lawyers who are on their side trying to figure out how to prevent money from leaving their checkbooks. Quite frankly, you do need a lawyer to help you through this because your lawyer will make sure you’re properly compensated.
Do Cases Settle Without Going to Court?
Cases settle before going to trial 80 to 90 percent of the time. However, that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of work involved in getting a case settled outside of court. Sometimes you have to file a lawsuit and do a lot of what I call “legal maneuvering” to get a case settled. That means we take depositions from witnesses to the accident, from police officers, and from your doctors. But, yes, most cases will settle prior to trial.
Do You Get Good Results for Your Clients?
We do get good results for our clients. We have settled hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where we’ve had large settlements. We’ve had substantial verdicts. We go to the mat for our clients if necessary. We’ll appeal cases. We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure our client is taken care of.
See What Our Clients Say
No Fee Unless You Win
Questions Or Schedule A Free Appointment? Click To Call (719) 520-9909
No Fee Unless You Win
Questions or Schedule A free Appointment? Click to Call (719) 520-9909
Our Attorneys
Gordon J. Heuser, Esq.
As a Colorado Springs native, Gordon has been practicing in Southern Colorado for 35+ years.…
Barkley D. Heuser, Esq.
Barkley Heuser is a Colorado native, and has lived in Colorado Springs for over 59…
Brennan D. Heuser, Esq.
Brennan Heuser is a Colorado Native who graduated from the University of Miami, Fl with…
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Want To Learn More About Your Colorado Car Accident Case? Download Our EBook, On Us!
We wanted to find a way to make your car wreck case even easier for you. That is why we wrote this guide that will provide you with the critical information you need to know about your car accident case.
As car accident law professionals, we have seen too many individuals lose out on their maximum owed compensation. Don’t miss out on the settlement you deserve! In this book, you will learn how to:
- Avoid the key mistakes that can derail your claim.
- Know what you should and shouldn’t say if an insurance adjuster contacts you
- Understand the dos and don’ts of social media.
- Position yourself to collect full and fair compensation for your injuries.
No Fee Unless You Win
Questions Or Schedule A Free Appointment? Click To Call (719) 520-9909
No Fee Unless You Win
Questions or Schedule A free Appointment? Click to Call (719) 520-9909
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