You were injured, and it wasn’t your fault. Now you’re dealing with the aftermath all on your own, and you know you need help. Whether you’re watching medical bills pile up, dealing with dwindling savings while you’re out of work, or worried about your future financial stability, filing a personal injury claim can lay the foundation for you to recover compensation.
But knowing that you can recoup the costs associated with your accident and losses is not the same as knowing how much you are entitled to recover. This means you might be left wondering how much your case may be worth.
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is often much more complicated than injury victims would like. There are many different factors that must be accounted for before determining how much a person is owed for their injury-related losses. Determining that worth in the early phases of a claim isn’t just difficult—it’s practically impossible.
What Is My Personal Injury Claim Worth?
There are two main reasons for filing a personal injury claim. These are to:
- Hold the at-fault party responsible for their negligent, reckless, or wrongful actions, and
- To recover compensation for your damages, losses, and all the ways in which your life has been impacted.
It’s understandable that you want to know how much your claim is worth, and you want to know sooner rather than later. However, we must consider the wide range of factors that can influence the total worth of an injury case before coming to a conclusion.
For this reason, if you meet with a law firm that gives you a firm amount during one of your very first meetings, we advise choosing a different attorney to work with. Anyone who is willing to cite an exact amount early on in your claim may be someone who is not acting in good faith.
Factors That Influence How Much a Case Is Worth
So, how much is your case really worth, and how can you find out? Your lawyer should conduct a thorough and in-depth investigation of your case before determining how much it is worth. During this period of time, they will consider a variety of factors that influence the overall compensation to which you may be entitled.
Factors that influence the value of your case include:
- The type of claim you are filing:
- Car accident
- Truck accident
- Motorcycle accident
- Boat accident
- Nursing home abuse
- Medical malpractice
- Slip and fall
- Dog or animal bite
- Product liability
- The extent and severity of your injuries
- Your current and past medical bills
- Anticipated future medical needs and costs
- Expected maximum medical improvement (MMI)
- Travel costs to and from medical appointments
- How much time you’ve missed from work
- Whether you’ll be able to work in the same capacity in the future (or if you’ll be able to work at all)
- Cost of retrofitting your home to accommodate new disabilities or adaptive devices
- Cost of necessary domestic services (including childcare, housekeeping, and in-home nurses)
- Physical pain and suffering
- Lingering mental anguish
- New mental health diagnoses
- Your ability to enjoy your life as you once did
The above is an incomplete list of factors that will influence how much you can recover when filing a personal injury claim. If you believe there is something else that you deserve compensation for, be sure to speak with an attorney. They can advise you of your rights when filing a personal injury claim.
What Can Bianca | Matkins Tell Me About the Value of My Case?
We invite anyone who has been injured in South Louisiana to schedule a completely free case evaluation with Bianca | Matkins. But if we can’t tell you what your claim is worth at this early stage, what’s the point of meeting with an attorney early on?
While we can’t give you a firm number of what your case might be worth, we can give you an idea of whether you have a big case or a small case. Why is this important? It gives you a better understanding of what you’re dealing with, and whether you need to secure the services of a lawyer.
So although we won’t be giving you an estimate of your case’s worth during an initial informational meeting, we will:
- Go over the details of what happened to you,
- Discuss the ways in which your life has been affected,
- Determine whether another person or entity could have caused your injuries, and
- Review your legal options.
And when it comes time to value the worth of your case, we’ll put all of our investigative knowledge and experience as a top-rated Louisiana law firm behind it. Our decades of combined legal experience have given us an unrivaled insight into the types and amounts of compensation often awarded by judges and juries.
This base knowledge acts as an important guiding principle during settlement negotiations with the insurance company. If an insurer isn’t willing to offer what we know our client is entitled to, we never hesitate to elevate matters to court.
Meet With a Baton Rouge Personal Injury Law Office
You have the right to know what your legal options are. But if you’ve been injured by another person’s negligent actions, they and their insurance company won’t exactly be forthright about the compensation to which you are entitled.
That’s where we come in. When you choose to work with the experienced trial lawyers of Bianca | Matkins, you’re sending a powerful message to the insurance company—you know that you are entitled to a full and fair recovery of your damages, and you aren’t willing to accept anything less.
So let’s talk. There’s never any cost to sit down and discuss your case with a lawyer from our office.
