In the wreckage the follows a car collision, it seems impossible to assign any value to the damaged vehicles. Yet an insurance company must determine the number that corresponds to the value of both the damaged vehicles and the injured occupant.
2 Questions highlight the first factor considered.
Does the at-fault driver have insurance coverage? What are the policy limits?
A follow-up question might be this one: Does the driver that got hit have uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist protection?
If the case were to go to trial, and if the jury’s decision exceeded the limits on the defendant’s policy, then the defendant’s assets would determine how much money the plaintiff received (unless that plaintiff had underinsured motorist protection).
What was the nature and extent of the vehicle damage?
If a vehicle has not been greatly damaged, then insurance companies tend to question a claim about a severe injury. Still, insurance companies also study the location of any damaged region, no matter how large it might be.
In other words, it might not pay to try creating large areas of damage, in hopes of making a claim about an injury seem more credible. The insurance company will study the location of such an area. After making that study, the insurer might refuse to accept the claim. One driver learned that fact the hard way.
He saw another driver try to fit into the parking space behind him. When that driver’s car was approaching the curb, the money-hungry fellow backed his vehicle into the side of the car that was about to be parked. Then he emerged from his vehicle holding a cane, and complaining about an injury. He had hoped to get some insurance money, but his claim was denied.
Formula used by Insurance companies
The insurer totals up all of a claimant’s medical expenses. That total becomes one factor in a multiplication operation. The other factor is a figure between 1.5 and 5, with the size of that particular figure corresponding to the severity of the claimant’s injuries.
Car Accident Lawyer in Cambridge know that the product of that multiplication then gets added to the amount of income that the claimant lost, while recovering from his or her injury. That addition yields another number, one that represents an estimate of the value for the claimant’s car accident case.
Why is it only an estimate?
The defendant might charge the plaintiff with contributory negligence. If that charge were verified and proven, then jury would decide how much money to deduct from the estimated amount. The size of the deduction would match the extent of the plaintiff’s negligence.
Once that final deduction had been made, the final figure would be known. That final figure would be the car accident’s value.
