Navarre is a great place for riding a bike and enjoying fresh salt air, exercise, and beautiful Florida scenery, but some risks come with this enjoyable activity. The unfortunate truth is that many drivers either fail to realize the rights that cyclists have while on the road, and others may simply not notice a bicycle rider while in motion. Both of these are significant factors for bicycle accidents, which are often far more devastating to a rider than for anyone in a vehicle. This is where a Navarre personal injury lawyer can help you.
Fortunately, there is a way to collect compensation for a range of damages if you or a loved one is hurt or killed in a bicycle accident in Navarre. Personal injury law allows victims of a range of accidents to seek compensation for various impacts (which will be discussed in greater detail below) through either a lawsuit or insurance claim. Commonly after a bicycle accident that someone else caused, especially one involving a motor vehicle, the cyclist will file an insurance claim that is, at least at first glance, designed to calculate these damages and provide a one-time settlement payment to alleviate the victim’s financial suffering. The unfortunate reality, though, is that these claims are designed to work in favor of the insurer as they try to pay as little as possible while still avoiding ongoing legal issues stemming from the crash.
Working with a personal injury attorney is one of the best ways to navigate these complicated claims processes in a way that works to get you the money you deserve, and not just settle for what the insurance adjuster hopes to offer. Partnering with a lawyer as soon as possible is the first step towards getting the money you deserve.
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Our personal injury law firm offers a free consultation to victims of Navarre cycling accidents to provide victims and their families with a clear understanding of their rights and options as they move forward with an insurance claim or preparing a lawsuit. Stress and anxiety have significant negative impacts on the recovery process, and entrusting your legal needs to a professional will help alleviate the uncertainty and stress that come with trying to manage your claim. You can take this time to focus on your healing and getting your life back on track while we worry about getting you the money you deserve.
Contact us as soon as possible to get started on your claim today.
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Calculating Damages After a Bicycle Accident in Navarre
At the heart of any personal injury claim is the question of damages and how much money a victim is owed. Insurance adjusters prefer to focus on a limited range of damages to expedite the claims process and settle for as little as possible. Still, a victim is often shocked to discover the difference between the insurance company’s initial offer and the amount that their attorney calculates as what they are rightfully owed.
The compensation a victim seeks in a tort claim is called “compensatory damage,” because these damages are designed to compensate a victim for financial and otherwise losses. Compensatory damages are subdivided into two distinct categories that are very different but equally important when calculating a fair and comprehensive settlement.
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Economic Damages
Economic damages are often the easiest damages to calculate in a personal injury case, because they pertain to impacts that have measurable dollar values associated with them. These damages commonly consist of things like property damage, medical bills, and any impacts to a victim’s earnings such as lost wages, PTO or sick leave used for medical care relating to the accident, and the cost of services that a victim may need to hire to help them perform tasks they would otherwise handle on their own.
These damages are repaid on a 1:1 basis, meaning that there are no multipliers or methods of requesting compensation beyond the losses a victim has suffered (or will suffer in the future). Therefore, it is crucial to work with an attorney who is experienced with projecting these future losses, such as future medical care or the long-term impacts of a diminished earning capacity due to catastrophic injuries.
Unsurprisingly, economic damages are the types of damages that an insurer is inclined to focus on while avoiding the additional non-economic damages that many personal injury victims are entitled to. This is due to many factors, primarily that a victim may not understand how to calculate non-economic damages and cannot advocate for themselves through aggressive settlement negotiations.
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Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages pertain to the impacts of an accident that do not have measurable dollar values associate with them. These damages include things like the actual pain and suffering a victim must endure after being injured in an accident, as well as the emotional and psychological impacts of such a traumatic experience. For someone who is not experienced with tort law, trying to assign a dollar value to something as subjective as “post-traumatic stress” can seem impossible, and trying to defend these calculations through negotiations even more so.
Insurance companies are more inclined to push back on these calculations, either when working with a claimant directly or with a personal injury attorney. However, personal injury attorneys have years of experience handling the negotiations necessary to close the gap between an insurer’s settlement offer and the amount their client is owed.
Your attorney will have many tools at their disposal to accurately and calculate these types of damages, and will choose the most appropriate method for getting you the maximum compensation. These calculations must be reasonable, though, because making unreasonably large estimates for non-economic damages can shut down reasonable negotiations before they begin. Fortunately, the team at Fasig | Brooks is highly skilled with both damage calculations and negotiations and has a history of successful cases where we have represented a range of clients to a successful resolution to their personal injury cases. We look forward to doing the same for you.
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