Why Should You Hire an Attorney After Your Car Accident in Colorado?

• Take pictures before the vehicles are moved from the scene. As they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” More often than not, the attorneys at Frederick | Ganderton LLP will insert those pictures, along with Google Earth images and images of your injuries, if any, into a demand package so that the insurance adjusters can get a clear picture of the incident and its effects.

• Obtain witness contact information. While an officer on scene should do this, sometimes they don’t, and having witness contact information to obtain statements later can be imperative.

• Call an attorney immediately. Speaking with an attorney is something you should do before giving statements to the insurance company, and it may be a valuable tool when considering using your health insurance for injuries versus medical pay insurance under your auto policy versus taking on hospital liens.
  

How Much Is My Claim Worth?

The answer is that it depends. It depends on three broad factors:

The first thing to consider is what are your injuries and what are your medical bills. Insurance companies will look at the medical bills to put a value on your case. What your injuries are, how much treatment you have, and how much your medical bills are will significantly impact how much your case is worth.

The second thing we look at when determining how much your case is worth is your loss of income or how much time off work you had due to the accident. If you only had a few days off, this would be pretty different from someone who can’t work for the rest of their life. The person who can’t work for the rest of their life will have a much higher valued claim than those who take a few days off.

The third area we look at to determine how much a case is worth is pain and suffering. How bad were you hurt, and how long does that pain last? Some people hurt very little after an accident, while others have chronic pain lasting for years. Those two different claims will be treated quite differently by an insurance company. It is our job to put in our demand letters:

• How much a person hurts.
• What they can’t do now that they could do before the incident.
• Whether they have scarring or some other kind of physical disfigurement from the accident.

We explain to the adjustor what pain and suffering our client has endured and what they are going through and have gone through because of the accident.

So those are the three factors that we look at when we are trying to answer this question for our clients:

1. The injuries and medical bills
2. The loss of income
3. The pain and suffering

Often, it takes a lot of work to give a direct answer upfront because of the many variables considered when valuing a claim. If you have questions and want a better answer than “it depends,” call us. We are happy to give you a free consultation and discuss your case: (720) 588-9120, staff@frederickganderton.com.

Economic Damages

These are damages to which you can tie a specific dollar amount. An example is medical bills. A twenty thousand dollar medical bill is twenty thousand dollars, plain and straightforward. Another example is your loss of income for taking a month off work. However much you usually make for that month of work is economic damage. Out-of-pocket expenses such as prescriptions also count in this category. You can tie a direct dollar amount to these specific amounts.

Non-economic Damages

Now, this is much broader. Often, they are called general damages because they’re just that, they are general. These are things like pain and suffering, permanent scarring, and disfigurement. They are things that you cannot do now that you could do before the accident. They interfere with your activities of daily living. They create a loss of enjoyment of life. For example, if before a car accident, you just loved to go skiing or golfing, and now you can’t, you’ve lost your enjoyment of life because of those injuries.

Or perhaps you’ve had surgery and scarring from that surgery. That permanent scar can be frustrating and humiliating, and you can frankly not like it. You now have a scar you didn’t have before, and that permanent scarring and disfigurement is a non-economic damage. You should be compensated for these things because the at-fault driver caused you to have that injury and scar.

Other non-economic damages are things like depression or anxiety. These can be a mix of the two types of damages if you’re getting treatment for your depression or even post-traumatic stress disorder due to the accident. In this case, there can also be billing from your treatment providers. However, just the depression you’re suffering from, potentially the anxiety of being behind the wheel and on the road, those things you might not be getting treated for are still non-economic or general damage.

Which Pays Out More

So, those are just a few examples of some of the non-economic damages out there. The big one is pain and suffering, which is how bad you’re feeling now and how much pain you’re in when trying to do those activities of daily living. For example, if you have to walk up and down stairs in your house and have a knee injury, that will be very painful, and you will need compensation.

Economic damages are things you can tie a dollar amount to. Non-economic damages are more general, and you have to be compensated for them, and often, they can be worth way more than any economic damage in your case.

You must talk to an attorney if you’ve been involved in an auto accident or any personal injury case. The lawyer can start collecting your records, talking to your family members, and understanding how you feel after that car accident or personal injury. Your lawyer can figure out what both your economic and your non-economic damages are. So, if you’ve been in an accident and need to talk to an attorney, and you think that you might have both economic and non-economic damages