Due to various factors, determining the average settlement amount for back and neck injuries is nearly impossible. Neck and back injuries range from mild to chronic disability, depending on the circumstances of an accident. These injuries often result in daily pain and discomfort, affecting one’s ability to perform daily tasks and work-related duties and enjoy life. These factors (and more) contribute to how much compensation you may receive for back and neck injuries after an accident.
While I can tell you back and neck injury settlements range from $15,000 to a million dollars, that does not accurately answer the question of—average. Consult a personal injury attorney to discuss the specifics of your injury claim. After discovering the details of your accident and injury type, they can better narrow the possibilities you may expect to receive for your claim. Schedule a free consultation.
Factors Influencing a Settlement Amount for Back and Neck Injuries
Before a personal injury lawyer can accurately estimate a ballpark figure on what you may expect to recover in a settlement amount for back and neck injuries, they must assess several components of your case. Factors that significantly influence how much you should expect to receive for your back and neck injuries include the type of injury, length of medical treatment, and if injuries result in permanent impairment or disability. Other considerations impacting the amount are your income losses, pain and suffering, and insurance policy limits.
Type of Back and Neck Injuries
The type of back and neck injuries sustained in an accident speaks to the severity. The more severe your injuries, the higher the settlement amount should be. Back and neck injuries can occur in motor vehicle collisions, slip and fall accidents, construction accidents, and workers’ compensation accidents. Back and neck injuries you may recover compensation for after an accident include the following:
- Neck Injuries: Whiplash is a neck injury that occurs when the head, neck, and body move at different speeds and is often associated with car accidents. Other neck injuries include strains and sprains, pinched nerves, and fractured or broken necks.
- Back Injuries: Sprains and strains are common back injuries involving muscle or ligament damage. Other back injuries include herniated discs, spinal stenosis, slipped vertebrae (spondylolisthesis), and spinal cord injuries (SCIs).
Accident victims with a permanent impairment or disability can expect significantly higher than average settlement amounts for back and neck injuries. Back and neck injuries that commonly cause permanent impairment include SCIs, such as paralysis (paraplegia or quadriplegia), severe disc herniations, spinal fractures impacting nerve function, and severe cases of degenerative disc disease.
Length of Medical Treatment
The length of your medical treatment significantly impacts the amount of your settlement. The more severe the injuries, the longer and more intense the treatment recovery time and expenses will be. The costs of your economic damages, including medical treatments, usually help determine the value of your non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering. The greater the financial loss, the better your chance of recovering reasonable compensation for non-economic damages.
Lost Income
When injuries are severe enough to miss work, you can calculate your lost earnings. Whether you miss work due to the severity of your injuries or because you are attending medical appointments, those income losses are recoverable damages in a back and neck injury accident claim. Income losses can range from missing a week’s income to needing an attorney to consult a vocational expert or forensic economist to calculate your lost earning capacity and potential future earnings.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering are non-economic damages that accident victims may seek compensation for when accompanied by physical injuries or actual damages. It entails the physical pain and emotional distress you experience due to your back and neck injuries. Pain and suffering may also include psychological trauma, such as fear, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Accident victims should document their pain and suffering in a post-accident journal to secure compensation for the damage.
Policy Limits
Insurance policy limits directly impact the settlement amount of back and neck injuries. The maximum amount an insurance policy covers may limit your potential settlement. An attorney cannot recover more than a policy allows. However, they will investigate the possibility of multiple liability and review personal insurance policies to find other ways to compensate for your loss. For example, depending on the accident type, a person may file a claim for damages against their uninsured/underinsured (UM/UIM) auto insurance coverage.
Types of Damages You May Seek in a Back and Neck Injury Settlement
You may seek compensation for two primary categories of damages in back and neck injury accidents: economic and non-economic. A third and less likely type of loss claimed for compensation is known as punitive damages. Punitive damages are reserved for egregious offenses that warrant legal discipline, such as a serious drunk driving accident with multiple victims. They are only awarded by a judge and jury if your case requires litigation. However, insurance companies and attorneys settle most personal injury claims outside court.
Economic Damages
The economic damages are the monetary losses sustained in your personal injury claim. They are tangible and documented by their paper trail of invoices, billing statements, and receipts. Standard economic damages in personal injury claims and lawsuits are as follows:
- Healthcare Costs: All medical expenses are recoverable economic damages in your personal injury claim. They include medical bills for surgeries, hospitalizations, primary care, dental care, physical therapy and other rehabilitation services, medical assistive devices, and prescription medications. Copays and deductibles are also recoverable monetary losses. Injured parties with permanent impairments or disabilities will have future healthcare costs determined and factored into your settlement amount for back and neck injuries.
- Lost Earnings: Your lost earnings include all income losses sustained due to the accident. Examples of lost earnings include lost income or salary, vacation time, sick days and paid time off, bonuses and commissions, and loss of benefits, such as healthcare, retirement, and pension. Accident victims with disabilities and permanent impairments may have their diminished or lost earning capacity and future earnings calculated.
- Property Damages: Any property damaged or destroyed in a personal injury accident is recoverable economic damage. Vehicle-related repairs or replacements, rental cars, and rideshare expenses are damages you can claim in your settlement. Other examples of property damage entail damages to homes, commercial buildings, fences, mailboxes, gardens, and landscaping. You may also claim clothing, jewelry, portable electronic devices, cell phones, bicycles, scooters, and safety equipment.
- Domestic Services: Injured parties who require the assistance of hired help can recover those costs in their settlement amount for back and neck injuries. Domestic services may include cooking, housecleaning, laundry, childcare, lawn maintenance, and driving. Accident victims should also keep records of grocery and prescription delivery costs. While you won’t be compensated for the groceries in your claim, the added fees associated with delivering the groceries because you can no longer drive may be recoverable.
- Disability Modifications: Accident victims with disabilities can claim the expenses associated with their vehicle and in-home modifications. Vehicle modifications may include steering devices, seat belt adjustments, and hand controls. The cost of a wheelchair-accessible vehicle may also be calculated as an economic loss. In-home modifications or estimates may include expenses for lowering counters in kitchens and bathrooms, widening doorways, and building ramps and chair lifts.
If you have financial documents demonstrating monetary losses, you must provide them to your personal injury lawyer to ensure they are tallied. Ask your attorney if you are uncertain whether an economic loss is claimable. There are many other considerations—for example, your attorney may calculate the travel time to and from your medical, surgical, and rehabilitation appointments, factoring in the cost of gas if you have the evidence documenting the travel time and gas expense.
Non-Economic Damages
The non-economic damages in your personal injury claim are the non-monetary damages suffered due to the accident. They are intangible and more challenging to quantify because they do not have a paper trail of invoices and receipts proving them. Examples of standard non-economic damages in personal injury claims and lawsuits include:
- Physical Pain: Physical pain can be challenging to prove or quantify from acute to chronic pain conditions. Keep detailed records of your pain levels on a scale of 1-10. You should also document the location, duration, frequency, and any activities or treatments that better or worsen pain. Keep the record in your post-accident journal, along with the pain medications you’re taking, including dosage, frequency, side effects, and dependency.
- Emotional Suffering: Emotional distress and mental anguish following an accident is another non-economic damage to detail in your post-accident journal. Entries may outline sleep disturbances, challenges with processing emotions about a new impairment or disability, and psychological trauma caused by the accident.
- Loss of Consortium: A loss of consortium refers to losing the intangible benefits you receive from a relationship. It generally refers to a spouse and can include compensation for losses such as companionship, affection, love, assistance and service, and spousal relations. For children, it may entail a loss of parental guidance and support.
- A Loss of Enjoyment of Life: Accident victims suffering injuries that affect their ability to perform activities or hobbies they enjoyed before their accident may be awarded a loss of enjoyment of life. Some circumstances that may be considered a loss of enjoyment of life include the inability to play sports, cook and prepare meals, attend social events, work in a particular industry, or participate in once-beloved hobbies like hiking or rock climbing.
- Disfigurement and Disability: Individuals with disfigurement or disability may be compensated for those damages—for example, individuals with severe disfigurement may receive compensation for humiliation and embarrassment. Life-altering back and neck injuries, such as paralysis, generally see higher settlement amounts.
Your doctor will work with your healthcare professionals to ensure detailed medical records with physician notes, statements, and testimonies regarding the severity of your injuries and non-economic damages. However, a key piece of evidence is your post-accident journal documenting these damages. You must remain consistent by documenting your daily emotional and psychological symptoms if you expect to be compensated for them.
How a Lawyer Helps Secure a Settlement Amount for Back and Neck Injuries
Most personal injury attorneys work for contingency, meaning they do not require out-of-pocket costs for their legal services. Contingency arrangements make hiring an attorney available to injured parties who need to focus on prioritizing their health and recovery—all of them. A lawyer will help secure a settlement amount for back and neck injuries in the following ways:
- Case Evaluation: Most personal injury lawyers offer free case evaluations to review the specifics of your case. This allows accident victims to interview a couple of prospective attorneys before deciding which one they believe will best handle their case. Come prepared with questions and listen for someone who instills confidence in how they answer them. You want a confident and experienced lawyer, not an arrogant or inexperienced one.
- Case Investigation: Personal injury attorneys will thoroughly investigate your accident claim. That means gathering the evidence in your case, interviewing witnesses, consulting medical and economist experts (among others), and working with accident reconstruction specialists to pinpoint negligence and cement liability. The length of their investigation depends on your accident type, the number of liable parties, and various other factors.
- Calculations of Damages: Calculating economic damages involves tallying financial documents demonstrating their losses. However, determining the value of a lost earning capacity or your non-economic damages is more challenging. Personal injury lawyers work with a network of respected professionals to calculate these damages within the insurance claims and legal systems. It often involves using the multiplier method of calculating non-economic damages. The multiplier method multiplies your economic damage total by a multiplier number between 1.5 and 5. The severity of your injuries influences the multiplier number chosen.
- Negotiations of Settlements: Personal injury lawyers are skilled negotiators who confidently demand insurance companies pay reasonable claims. While most people without legal representation accept the first lowball offer, failing to negotiate a higher sum, your attorney will not. Instead, they will negotiate with insurance companies until they pay their fair share or until they need to file a civil lawsuit.
- Representation in Court: If your attorney and liable insurance companies disagree on settlement terms, your lawyer may file a lawsuit. In that case, both sides enter the discovery phase, exchanging interrogatories and depositions. Your lawyer will continue negotiating with the defense through pre-trial motions. Most personal injury cases are settled before trial. However, if trial commences, they will represent your case before a judge and jury to secure a settlement for your back and neck injuries.
A Personal Injury Attorney is Standing By
If you have back and neck injuries sustained in a personal injury accident, speak to a reputable and experienced attorney immediately. You’ll want to protect your legal rights, including the right to seek a financial settlement for back and neck injuries that are not your fault. Schedule a free case evaluation today.
