What is an Injury Calculator, and Does it Work? A Personal Injury Lawyer in Greenville, South Carolina Explains
After a serious and injury-causing car accident, victims often have unexpected medical bills. These bills can be extremely overwhelming and hard to pay. But doctors want to get paid, and most times, they will make sure to collect payment upfront, even though you might not be able to work due to your injuries, and you may even have significant lost wages, making these bills much harder to pay. So who is going to pay you for your personal injuries? ( Is there an injury calculator for that?)
You are probably wondering how much you will get from insurance for your suffering. These are some of the most common—and often one of the first—thoughts and questions that many car accident, dog bite, medical malpractice, construction accident, slip & fall victims ask our personal injury lawyers at the Hammack Law Firm. And that is perfectly understandable!
Here at the Hammack Law Firm, we understand how physically, emotionally, and financially overwhelming it can be for a victim and his or her family after an accident. Learning how to get paid and how much it will be can be very important for a person or family who needs to pay bills, keep food on the table, and have a roof over their heads.
What is an Injury Calculator?
Whether you talk to a genie, a computer algorithm, or a “mirror, mirror on the wall,” no one can precisely tell you what you will get in a personal injury lawsuit beforehand.
Although, some personal injury lawyers will certainly try to tell you they can do it right from their website. That is where injury calculators come in.
An injury calculator is marketed as a way for a victim to get a case evaluation of a general estimate for what they could recover in a personal injury lawsuit. It allows a victim to input certain information like age, type of injury, and other factors, and the algorithm will spit out a number that the case could be worth. And the truth is, personal injury cases are complicated, so case calculators can often be inaccurate.
What Exactly Goes Into Valuing a Personal Injury Case?
Many of the factors that matter in determining the reasonable compensation of a case all pertain to factors that cannot be reduced to simple calculus. That’s why valuing a personal injury case is a beast of a task best left to a professional.
For example, some of the important factors that go into valuing a case include the following:
- Age of the victim
- The extent of the injury and type
- Permanent disability
- Length of past pain and suffering
- Length of expected future pain and suffering (based on an actuary table)
- Gender (yes—a scar on a woman’s face is worth more than on a man’s face)
- The number of surgeries can type of surgeries
- Potentially need for a future surgery (i.e., a hip replacement is only good for 20 years, so a hip replacement in a 30-year-old may need to be done 2 more times in his lifetime, whereas a hip replacement in a 60-year-old might not)
- Nature and “going rate” of the county (some counties are historically more conservative with verdicts, while other counties – like urban counties with major cities – are often more generous)
- Sympathy factor of the victim
- Family values of the victim and other witnesses
- The credibility of the victim
- Impact of witness testimony (i.e., how good a doctor is at testifying on the victim’s behalf)
- Whether home or vehicle modifications need to be done
- Lost wages
- Lost future earnings if unable to do the same job
- Loss of consortium and impact to a loved one such as a spouse, child, parent, or other dependents
- Loss of guardianship, nurturing, society, protection, and other factors to a loved one
- Punitive damages for extremely outrageous and shocking conduct by a defendant
- Whether counsel fees may be awarded in the matter, particularly where there is a bad faith insurance claim for failing to properly resolve the matter or negotiate in good faith
- Testimony relating to the emotional and mental impact of the harm, and
- Other factors that must be considered in evaluating a personal injury case.
Why You Should Call Our Bodily Injury Law Firm
After a serious or catastrophic car accident, it doesn’t hurt to utilize a personal injury calculator. However, an experienced personal injury lawyer can help you properly evaluate your case’s value in ways that an algorithm cannot. And better yet, you won’t have to pay any exorbitant movie price to do so because, here at the Hammack Law Firm, we offer FREE case evaluations and consultations.
Call our experienced personal injury lawyers in Greenville, South Carolina to schedule your free consultation to learn more about your rights after a serious accident.
With over 25 years of legal experience, Paul Hammack provides his clients with a level of trial expertise and strategic insight rarely found in personal injury litigation. Having spent the first eight years of his career working within major insurance defense firms across Georgia and South Carolina, Paul gained an intimate understanding of the “other side’s” playbook. This insurance industry background serves as a unique differentiator for his clients; he knows exactly how insurance carriers evaluate risk and what motivates them to pay top dollar for a claim.
In 2008, Paul founded Hammack Law Firm to move away from the “plaintiff mill” model and focus on building personal relationships with those he represents. As a seasoned litigator, he has tried dozens of first-chair cases to verdict, specializing in high-stakes litigation involving catastrophic injuries and complex truck accidents. His dual-state practice allows him to provide aggressive representation across both South Carolina and Georgia, ensuring victims of negligence receive the maximum financial compensation possible regardless of which side of the state line the accident occurred.
Paul’s commitment to excellence is reflected in his record of significant achievements, including a $10 million tractor-trailer wrongful death settlement and a $3.9 million moped-versus-truck recovery. His credentials and bar admissions in both South Carolina and Georgia underscore his deep roots in the regional legal community. Beyond the courtroom, Paul is a dedicated advocate for his local community, contributing his time and resources to organizations such as the United Way, Red Cross, and Hands On Greenville, all while working to make South Carolina a safer place for everyone.
