How Is The Worth or Monetary Value Of A Serious Injury Case Determined?

The worth or monetary value of a serious injury case is determined relative to the totality of the circumstances. No one wants to put a money value on life, but when you’re dealing with a collision or serious injuries or even wrongful death, you have to put a monetary value on a life. You would look at the person’s income potential, education, work history, and how much they were able to work prior to the collision as opposed to after the collision. You would also look at how the collision will affect them moving forward, and the amount of past and future medical expenses.

In serious injury cases, we will often hire professionals to prepare what’s called a life care plan, which breaks up all the possible medical treatment a person would need for the rest of their life and puts a monetary value on each item of medical care every for the projected duration of the injured parties life. . In very serious cases where the person has lost the ability to walk or has diminished mental capacity or brain damage, the amount of all future medical treatment could be tens of millions of dollars.

Pain and suffering will often be determined as a factor or a multiple of the past and future medical expenses. For example, if you have $100,000 of medical expenses, the claim could be worth anywhere from $300,000 to $1 million. Many times, juries and lawyers will determine the value of a case as a factor or multiple of the medical expenses.

How Are Long-Term Care, Future Surgeries, And Treatments Calculated In A Serious Injury Case If We Don’t Know For Certain What That Might Look Like?

Long-term care, future surgery, and treatment expenses are typically calculated by the experts who we hire to create a life care plan. There are medical professionals who specialize in estimating future medical expenses and acquired medical expenses based on certain injuries or diagnoses. They will determine what type of medical care might be needed in the future, how may doctor visits will be necessary, how much time you will need to recover after different medical procedures, whether you will need nursing home or rehabilitative care and/or physical therapy, and what medications will be necessary. Once they come up with a monetary figure for all of these costs related to the injuries from the collision, they will consider that in the context of your life expectancy. Next an economist will be consulted to determine the present value of that lifetime of medical expenses. In serious injury cases, the life care plan can be $1 to $2 million, but I’ve seen them as high as $120 million. But if the insurance company does not pay for the medical expenses of the injured, usually those medical expenses will be passed to taxpayers through Medicare and Medicaid premiums. It is better for society to have the responsible parties pay for damages than have the injured becomes burdens on the taxpayers through Medicaid and Medicare benefits.

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