Will Insurance Pay for Lost Wages After a Car Accident?
In an ideal world insurance companies would immediately offer empathy and the highest settlement amount to those injured after an auto accident. Instead, filing an insurance claim can seem like a tiresome game of back-and-forth when all you want to do is put the whole incident behind you. This is especially true if you have financial concerns from missed time at work. With that in mind, our personal injury lawyers offer the following insight into a common client question: will insurance pay for lost wages after a car accident?
Compensation for Lost Wages
If you are injured in a car accident and are forced to miss work while you recover, you may be entitled to compensation for lost wages. That said, you may also have to wait months to receive any settlement amount from the liable party’s or your own insurer until a final determination is made.
On a positive note, most car insurance policies cover bodily injury.
How Much Can You Recover for Lost Wages
There are a few factors that may affect the final payout amount received after a car accident for lost wages.
Six of those factors include:
- Your state of residency
- Degree of injuries sustained
- Terms of insurance policies held by you and/or the at-fault party
- Whether or not your or the at-fault party are uninsured or under-insured
- Deceptive tactics of an insurance company
- Whether or not the at-fault driver has personal fund to contribute to lost wages
It is important to note that if car accident injuries are significantly life-altering or result in death, a lawsuit may be filed on behalf of the injured or remaining family members to cover the loss of long-term household income.
Related topic: How to Get the Most Money from a Car Accident
How Attorneys Calculate Lost Wages from Car Accidents
The first step to begin calculating lost wages after a car accident is to get letters from your doctor to verify injuries and your employer to verify missed work from injuries and current pay rate. They will then take into consideration a few factors to help determine the total amount of lost wages.
- For hourly workers, an attorney may multiply your hourly pay rate by the total amount of hours missed because of your injuries.
- For salaried workers, an attorney will evaluate the number of hours or missed time at work because of injuries.
- Self-employed or commision-based workers will require a little extra work to calculate and prove lost wages from a car accident. An experienced personal injury attorney at Patterson Legal Group can greatly help with this process.
Related topic: When You Don’t Talk to an Attorney After a Wreck
What Other Damages May I Claim After an Auto Wreck?
In addition to collecting compensation for lost wages, you may also be entitled to recover funds for:
- Medical expenses
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of affection or Companionship
- Wrongful death funeral costs
Contact Patterson Patterson Legal Group
At Patterson Legal Group, our team understands how great an impact a car accident injury can have on how you manage your day-to-day responsibilities. We also understand how stressful it can be to lose your source of income if you suffer serious injuries that require a significant amount of time away from work.
As such, you can feel confident that we will do all that we can to help alleviate your concerns and provide a beneficial outcome that will cover your immediate and future financial obligations.
Our team is available to serve you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to schedule a free consultation. During that consultation, we’ll want to learn as much as possible about your accident, injuries, and any missed time from work.
Call us at (816) 920-0000, connect with us online via LiveChat, or share details through a confidential website form. Our personal injury attorneys have earned a reputation for winning clients the highest settlements possible for all types of personal injury cases to include obtaining lost wages after a car accident.
Contact us today to learn first-hand why Patterson Legal Group is among the most trusted personal injury law firms in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
