Using an online calculator to estimate damages after a car accident may provide inaccurate results. Personal injury claims are often based on decisions made by insurance companies, court judges, or juries in a court trial.
Car Accident Settlement Calculators
When a car accident results in injuries, the injury victim can file a personal injury claim or lawsuit against the party who caused the accident. Under tort law, a plaintiff is entitled to pursue legal damages that restore him/her to the financial condition that existed prior to the car accident.
After a car accident occurs, online settlement calculators may provide a quick, convenient way to estimate monetary damages, but they often provide inaccurate results. Online calculators present challenges, because claims often involve insurance companies and personal injury lawsuits. Injury victims are often faced with the choice of accepting settlements from insurance companies or pursuing legal actions with a car crash lawyer.
- Injuries – To recover monetary damages after a car accident, the injury victim must have medical expenses associated with the injury.
- Damages – The accident may include economic damages for actual expenses incurred, as well as non-economic damages for intangibles like pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life.
- Fault – Nevada is a fault state, so the person determined to be at fault for the accident is responsible for damages. Nevada also has a modified comparative negligence or shared fault rule that allows proportional recovery for parties determined to be less than 50 percent responsible for damages and injuries.
Online car accident settlement calculators are best used for estimates only, because they rely solely on information provided by the user. They do not base results on the specifics and peculiarities of an individual case, only on data used in typical payouts.
Value of the Vehicle
Most online calculators request information about vehicle damage sustained in the accident, but they don’t take specific details into account like the vehicle’s condition, initial cost of the vehicle, depreciation, and mileage. In many cases, they simply produce a figure that’s an average repair cost for vehicles with front-end damage.
Value of Injuries
Online calculators evaluate injuries based on standard charts with set dollar amounts for specific types of injuries. Charts are usually produced using average payouts, rather than taking into account specific impact to injury victims. Injuries seen by car crash lawyers vary significantly between victims based on details of the accident.