When you have been injured in a car accident, you may be wondering who is responsible for paying your medical expenses. Both your insurance company and the insurance company of the other driver will be seeking to minimize their total expenses, potentially forcing you to pay out of pocket for medical treatments. Knowing how much your injuries are worth can help you plan your medical treatments and establish any claims that you may need to make. Depending on each individual circumstance, car insurance companies will pay for differing amounts.

Formula For Determining Injury Value

The insurance company of the driver responsible for the accident must compensate the other driver for:

• Medical care and other expenses
• Damaged property
• Lost income
• Emotional damages
• Permanent disability or disfigurement
• Loss of family, social and educational experiences

While some of these components can easily be determined by looking at relevant bills and expenses from medical professionals and mechanics, the dollar number for abstract concepts such as pain and suffering do not have any specific dollar figure associated with them.

The insurance company will use a formula to determine the total medical expenses resulting from the accident. The total medical expenses will be multiplied between one and a half and five times, depending on the seriousness of the medical injury, to determine the value of nonmonetary damages. Once this number has been determined, the insurance company will add any income lost as a result of the injuries to determine the starting rate for financial negotiations.

This number may not indicate the full amount of damages you will be receiving. Depending on the fault percentages in the accident, the insurance company will only pay what they are liable for. If you are 30% responsible for a crash, the other driver's insurance company is only responsible for 70% of the total monetary amount of your injuries.