Putting the Right Dollar Value on NY Accident Injury

For many, it’s hard to place a dollar value on their pain and suffering after an injury from a NY accident. That’s why some New York personal injury lawyers discuss with clients how insurance companies look at injuries and share some of the formulas they use.

Insurance companies look at pain and suffering in NY accidents by connecting the types of injuries with levels of pain. A sprained ankle can sometimes be more painful and persistent than a cracked ankle bone for instance. Your New York personal injury attorney also might mention how insurance companies divide injuries into two main categories:
  1. Soft tissue injuries: NY accident injuries such as a sprained or strained back, neck, knee, or ankle are referred to as soft tissue injuries because they involve muscles and other soft connective tissue. Insurance companies regard them as less serious than hard injuries and usually assign them to a damages formula reasoning that soft issue injuries are usually not permanent or dangerous regardless of how painful they may be.
  2. “Hard” injuries: Hard injuries are considered more serious and are awarded higher damages than soft tissue injuries. So in order to prove this type of injury, New York personal injury attorneys, like Seeger Weiss, advise clients to make sure their medical records identify the injury by a doctor, by an X-ray, by another test, or describe the injury as something other than a strain or sprain. If so, then the value of their claim for damages goes up. Likewise, an injury requiring any physical repair or intrusive examination by a doctor, from stitching a wound to setting a bone to arthroscopic examination of a joint, increases the value of a claim for you and your personal injury lawyer regardless of all other considerations.
If you have experienced “hard” injuries, you and your New York personal injury lawyer should also take the following into consideration.

Broken bones: If X-rays show that any bone has suffered even a minor break, including a chip or crack, the damages will immediately rise. If the break is a fine crack in a tiny bone and does not require any treatment or affect the way you go about your daily life, the broken bone will not raise the damages formula as much as a more substantial, life disrupting break.

Head injuries: With a head injury, there is the possibility that the effects of the injury will be much longer lasting than is obvious at first. What seems like a simple concussion from which you quickly recover can later turn into months or years of recurring headaches and dizziness. Insurance adjusters and your New York personal injury lawyer know that head injuries can last a long-time and that symptoms can recur after recovery—which can speed up negotiations before bigger bills are incurred.

So be careful and consult with Seeger Weiss, a New York personal injury lawyer.

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