How To Calculate Your Car Accident Compensation Amount

Have you been in a car accident? Here’s how to calculate how much you could be owed in car accident compensation.

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Nobody likes to have to deal with the fallout of getting into a car accident. Unfortunately, with more than 6 million car accidents in the USA every year, some of us don’t have the option. It is estimated that over 90 people in America die in car accidents every day. So, if you’re one of the lucky ones who survived, calculating car accident compensation almost seems like a luxury.

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One of the key questions we encounter in relation to car accident compensation, is how much you could be owed. Insurance representatives judge car accident claims every day and they do it by using a certain formula. Today, we want to explore this formula and help you figure out how much you could be owed if you’ve had a car accident.

Calculating car accident compensation in the US

Insurance adjusters use a certain set of circumstances to evaluate how much you are owed. They will multiply the number of special damages with the number of general damages. They will also add any lost wages and any other factors to determine the settlement amount. Although we can use these calculations to work out a rough formula for how much you could be owed, the best way to calculate compensation for a car accident in Oregon is to hire your own auto accident attorney.

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What are special damages in a car accident?

Special damages are made up of all the different losses which are unique to your situation. These are assigned a monetary value and you are then able to claim them. Special damages include things like damage to your individual property and medical bills

What are general damages in a car accident?

General damages in a car accident are all the things which have gone wrong for you which do not have a monetary value. If you are unable to attend choir practice and you usually go every week, this would be a general damage. Emotional damages are classed as general damages, with lost income through a lack of being able to work coming into consideration, too. 

Pain and suffering

Pain and suffering are one of the most difficult things for your insurance adjuster to calculate. it is difficult to put a specific price on the loss of a limb or a trauma. With more than 400 car accident fatalities a year in Oregon, pain and suffering often extends to wrongful death.

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Adding the Damages

The amount that you can claim in compensation for a car accident in the US amounts to the total of the special damages and general damages costs. Different insurance companies will assign different prices to each one of these and so it becomes quite tricky to calculate exactly how much you may earn. 

As a general rule of thumb. The more extensive the damage caused by your car accident, the higher the multiplier is used to calculate your award. This is often known as ‘the Multiplier Method.’ Car insurance companies will assign you a value between 1 and 5. Depending on the severity of your situation, the final figure will be multiplied by this number to arrive at a settlement.

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