How Much is My Motorcycle Accident Injury Claim Worth?

February 21, 2023 | Motorcycle Accidents

Motorcyclists often sustain significant injuries in accidents caused by the negligent actions of other drivers. Unfortunately, motorcycle crash victims regularly struggle to recover fair compensation. However, by working with a skilled motorcycle accident lawyer, individuals are often able to recover the money they need for their medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and other expenses. Here, we want to review how much your motorcycle accident claim could be worth.

Examining Motorcycle Accident Economic Damages

One of the first aspects of examining a motorcycle accident claim is looking at economic damages. You will also see these referred to as special damages, and these revolve around various calculable expenses motorcycle accident victims will likely incur.

When we say “calculable,” we mean that the motorcycle accident victim and our team will be able to gather the bills, estimates, invoices, and receipts that come in after the incident. This can include medical bills, property damage estimates, receipts showing out-of-pocket expenses, and more. Some of the most common types of expenses that we help clients recover compensation for after a motorcycle crash include the following:

• Emergency room or ambulance bills
• Prescription and over-the-counter medications
• Rehabilitation and physical therapy expenses
• Medical devices and in-home medical care
• Lost wages and loss of future earnings
• Property damage expenses
• Household out-of-pocket expenses

With economic damages, there is no set amount of compensation, but our team will work with trusted economic and financial experts who can examine the total losses and make sure that every dollar is added to the demand letter sent to insurance carriers. We want to make sure that your losses are clearly laid out to the parties that matter so you can get the compensation you need.

What Are Motorcycle Accident Non-Economic Damages?

Non-economic damages often referred to as general damages, are equally as important after a motorcycle accident occurs. However, these losses are not as easily calculable as the economic damages we reviewed above. These types of damages revolve around more unseen injuries that motorcyclists are likely to endure after the incident occurs. There aren’t typically going to be bills or receipts that can be added up, but there are methods of properly calculating non-economic losses.

Some of the most common types of non-economic damages recoverable by motorcycle accident victims throughout Texas include the following:

• Physical pain and suffering damages
• Psychological or emotional distress damages
• Loss of enjoyment of life damages
• Loss of companionship or consortium for a spouse

When working to adequately calculate these losses, a multiplier method may be used. Using this method, an attorney would add up all of the economic damages and then multiply them by a set number, typically a number ranging from 1.5 to 5. For example, if a person sustains $200,000 worth of economic losses after a motorcycle accident, a multiplier of “three” could be used in order to request $600,000 worth of non-economic damages.

Alternatively, a per diem method could be used, which would assign a dollar value to every day that a person is expected to experience pain and suffering losses. We encourage you to speak to an Austin motorcycle accident attorney if you have any questions about how non-economic damages for your motorcycle accident claim will be calculated.