The long-term consequences of a crash injury can be expensive
If you get hurt in a car crash, your hospital bills aren’t the only expenses you have to consider. Obviously, it will be important for you to negotiate an appropriate settlement with the insurance company or the driver that hit you based on your existing medical expenses and other losses, like the cost to repair your vehicle.
However, it is of the utmost importance that you also consider what potential future expenses an injury will cause. The more serious your physical condition is after the crash, the more likely it is to have a profound impact on your future financial circumstances. What are some of the future expenses people overlook when attempting to estimate the financial impact of a recent injury?
Housing and transportation accommodations
Someone who suffers a traumatic brain injury, amputation or spinal cord injury may need to make modifications to their daily life for comfort and safety. For example, you may need to add a ramp to your home, move your bedroom to the first floor so that you don’t need to take the stairs or widen walkways to accommodate walkers or wheelchairs.
Making a house more accessible for someone with a disabling medical condition can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to almost $20,000, sometimes even more. Making changes to a vehicle can also be very expensive. Wheelchair-accessible vehicles cost much more than standard new vehicles, and even adding manual controls and wheelchair lifts to a van someone already owns can be incredibly expensive.
Lost earning potential
For some people, severe injuries will force them to leave their job entirely. Others can continue working but need to perform less stressful and therefore lower-paying work.
Even those who continue to work in the same profession may lose advancement opportunities and raises in the future because of how health concerns affect either their job performance or the way their coworkers view them. Missing work and losing out on advancement opportunities can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost revenue in the future.
The potential impact of your injuries in the future influences the overall value of your personal injury claim. Holding the other party accountable may require a combination of both a lawsuit and an insurance claim after a major motor vehicle collision.