No one anticipates an accident. Therefore, no one is well prepared to deal with the costs that come after the accident. Many accident victims suffer a tremendous financial loss when seeking treatment, repair, or replacement for damaged properties, injuries and other financial needs directly associated with the accident. The good thing is that Nevada law allows victims of personal injury, who have incurred damages as a result of another party’s fault, to seek compensation for their losses. However, you have to know the type of benefits you are entitled to as an accident victim. They are what you will include in your personal injury claim.
Benefits for Personal Injury Victims
A personal injury is a legal term that refers to any damage that affects a person’s physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. People who have been in accidents like vehicle accidents and slip & falls are likely to incur personal injuries. Like most states, Nevada has a set of laws that govern how and when accident victims should claim compensation for their losses. The compensation is what is referred to as benefits.
Personal injury benefits refer to financial settlements that accident victims receive for the physical, emotional, and mental injuries they have incurred after an accident. Nevada laws allow these compensations in case the accident was a result of negligence by another party. The injured person must prove in court how another party’s careless actions caused their injuries. If the court is convinced, it will require the responsible party to pay compensation to the plaintiff.
However, not all accidents that result in personal injuries are entitled to this compensation. A case example is whereby the injured party was to blame for the accident. However, if the injured party was partly responsible for the accident, he/she may be able to recover part of their losses from the other party. In any case, it is wise to seek the advice and guidance of an experienced personal injury attorney.
Types of Benefits
If you have been in an accident and have incurred significant financial losses, you might be wondering how to pursue compensation from the responsible party. The most crucial bit is understanding the types of benefits you are entitled to and then filing a claim in a civil court. An experienced personal injury attorney will guide you to discover the losses you have incurred after the accident and the amount of money you deserve for each loss. The most common types of benefits for most accidents include:
Economic Benefits
These refer to all financial losses the accident victim may have incurred from the accident. The first thing that comes to a person’s mind after an accident is how they will recover their financial losses. Therefore, monetary benefits are the most significant to any accident victim. Economic benefits come in many forms, including the following:
Medical Care Benefits
After the accident, you were probably rushed to the Emergency Room for treatment. If not, you sought medical help to ensure that you were physically okay and could go on with your life as you usually do. Some people incur severe injuries in accidents and have to be treated for days, weeks, or even months to recover.
Medical costs can be high or moderate, depending on the severity of the accident. Some accident victims do not have the means to cater to their own medical needs. They have to borrow money from family or friends or even take loans to pay for their medical costs. If you suffered a catastrophic injury, it means that your medical expenses will go beyond the average recovery period for accident victims. You may need medical care for the rest of your life.
The law requires all these expenses to be charged to the responsible party. If the person who caused the accident were a reckless driver, a negligent vehicle manufacturer, an irresponsible trucking company, or a negligent employer, the law would hold him responsible for the resulting costs.
When the time comes to file your claim in a civil court, your attorney will help you develop a list of all your medical costs. You will then gather relevant evidence like medical receipts and reports to support your claim.
Lost Earning Capacity
As mentioned above, some accidents are more severe than others. If you were in a more devastating accident, you might have lost your earning capacity. People who suffer catastrophic injuries lose their ability to earn as much money as they made before the accident. It could be because they lost a limb or suffered a life-changing injury such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, or a spinal cord injury. People like those will have to seek an alternative means of earning a living as they couldn't perform well in their previous jobs.
If that happened to you, you deserve benefits for your lost earning capacity. You may not make enough money for your needs like you did before the accident. The person responsible for the accident will be required to compensate you for the money you will not earn in your present condition.
Lost Wages
Again, some injuries take more time to heal than others. Some people can go back to work after a few days of treatment, while others will take weeks or even months. Others will never be able to go back to work because of the long-term injuries they have incurred in an accident.
That is why Nevada laws allow benefits for lost wages to compensate accident victims for the length of time they will not be working as they recover from their injuries.
You do not stop paying bills because you have been involved in the accident. Your family will still rely on you for provision, even when you are not going to work. If you are your family’s sole provider, your dependents will suffer greatly if you will not find a way to cater to their needs.
That is why you should include benefits for lost wages in your claim. The benefits will reflect what you have not earned for the length of time you have been recovering in the hospital or home.
Housekeeping and Caregiver Benefits
If you have been in a grave accident and your injuries are severe, you may not be in a position to care for yourself. You might need help with your day-to-day tasks and house chores. It is not possible to find help like that for free. You will be paying for caregiving and housekeeping. These are extra expenses you may not have incurred if not for the accident. Thus, you deserve compensation for those as well.
The court will want to know how much your life has changed since the accident. If the accident made it impossible for you to care for yourself as you did before, the responsible party would be required to compensate you for the caregiving and housekeeping expenses as well. These benefits will cover all the costs you incurred immediately after the accident and those you were expected to incur in the future until you fully recover from the accident.
Benefits for Destroyed Property
Monetary benefits could also be in the form of repair or replacement for damaged property. Your car or bike may have been damaged in a road accident. The law will allow you to file for compensation for a loss like that. You will need an appraiser's help to determine the amount of loss you have incurred in your property, which you will include in your claim. A report from the appraiser and the repairer will be required as part of the evidence to ascertain your claims and provide the actual value of the loss you have incurred.
An experienced personal injury attorney will understand these details better than an ordinary person. Therefore, his/her assistance will help you make the right claim in a civil court. Your attorney will also help negotiate for a better settlement out of court if the responsible party’s insurer is willing to do so. It will save you a lot of time.
Death and Funeral Benefits
These benefits are available to the family of accident victims who lose their lives. If your loved one were involved in a fatal accident, you would include these benefits in your compensation claim. Death and funeral benefits will help the family pay for the deceased person’s medical expenses, funeral, and burial expenses. If the dead person were the family’s sole breadwinner, the court would award his/her family benefits to ensure that the dependents’ needs are met even in the victim’s absence.
That is why it is essential to find the person responsible for a fatal accident as soon as possible. It minimizes the possibility that his/her dependents will continue to suffer after their provider’s death.
Non-monetary Benefits
In addition to monetary benefits, the injured are eligible for non-monetary benefits to compensate for their other losses, which do not have an economic value attached. Examples of non-monetary benefits are pain and suffering. No one can explain the pain a person goes through in an accident. Unfortunately, many people ignore the pain as it cannot be evaluated like other monetary losses. The good thing is that Nevada's personal injury laws allow compensation for non-monetary losses as well. Thus, you may be able to include these benefits in your claim.
Pain and suffering are experienced right after the accident and even days, weeks, or months after the accident. People who incur catastrophic injuries have to live with the pain and suffering for much longer, or even for the rest of their lives.
The court would like to hear about the amount of pain and suffering you have incurred in the accident. An experienced attorney may help compile a strong report that could cause the court to award a more deserving amount for your non-monetary benefits.
How Are Benefits Determined?
Accidents are not the same, and the same goes for the benefits for accident victims. Some accidents are minor, while others are devastating. The type of benefits an accident victim is entitled to will be determined by the kind of accident they have been involved in. Remember that the accident has to be another person’s fault if the victim will succeed in filing for compensation. If you have been in an accident and would like to know the benefits to include in your claim, here is how they are determined.
The Nature of Your Injuries
The first thing you look at when determining the benefits you deserve after an accident is the nature of your injuries. Have you suffered minor or significant injuries from the accident? Are there catastrophic injuries? If the accident was minor and you only incurred a few bruises, there may be no need to file for compensation. However, if the accident was severe and incurred significant injuries, you deserve even greater benefits from the responsible party.
The medical benefits in your claim will be determined by the amount of medical care you received after the accident. The nature of your injuries will determine other monetary benefits, such as lost wages and lost earning capacity. A person who never lost a day of work will not include financial benefits like those in their claim.
Allow your experienced personal injury attorney to guide you on this to ensure that you are only filing a winning claim.
Your Percentage of Fault
Remember that not all accidents are the fault of another party. Some people suffer injuries in accidents they have caused. For these, there will be no need to file a case in court for compensation. Other people are partly responsible for accidents in which they have incurred severe injuries. Your percentage of responsibility in the accident will determine the nature and value of benefits you can include in your claim.
Nevada personal injury laws provide that a person will be held partly responsible for the resulting damages if they incurred injuries in an accident for which they are partly to blame. For example, if you were crossing the road in the middle of a street and outside a crosswalk, you may be partially or wholly to blame for the accident. The court will determine your percentage of liability in that accident and only award benefits according to the other responsible party’s share of fault.
Evidence Gathered Against Responsible Party
The amount of evidence gathered against the responsible party is also a determining factor of the nature and amount of benefits an accident victim receives. That is why it is advisable to engage the services of an experienced personal injury attorney. The right attorney will help establish the accident’s cause and how the accident affected various aspects of your life. He/she will also help come up with a compelling case against the responsible party.
Many accident victims do not receive the compensation they deserve because they didn’t have enough evidence against the alleged at-fault party. An experienced attorney will involve experts, eyewitnesses, and anyone else that could help in the case to ensure that you are filing a winning claim in a civil court.
An experienced attorney will also not leave out any benefit he feels you deserve out of the claim.
The Genuineness of Your Claim
Some people lose their personal injury cases because they were not genuine about their claims from the very beginning. Other people contradict themselves along the way, while others exaggerate some facts for their personal gain. It makes it hard for the judge to believe them and could cause them to lose their cases. It is advisable to recollect your thoughts after an accident, so you can tell the story as it is.
Many people face the challenge that other people, including the police, will want to hear their side of the story immediately after an accident. It is impossible to tell what happened if you are still traumatized or in pain. But after a few days, you may be able to give a genuine account of what you believe happened at the accident scene.
If you want your claim to appear genuine, refrain from speaking after the accident. If you already have an attorney, direct those asking about your side of the story to your attorney. Let your attorney know what you believe happened. Let him/her know what you think caused the accident and who you suspect is responsible for your injuries.
If you stick to your story from the beginning to the end, no one will doubt the genuineness of your claim. Again, let your attorney handle everything. A skilled attorney will know what to say and what not to say not to compromise the case.
Find a Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney Near Me
If you have suffered injuries resulting from another person’s negligence, the law allows you to file for compensation for your losses. However, you must have an exact list of benefits you believe you deserve for your injuries. Working with an experienced personal injury attorney makes all this easy for you. If injured, the Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney Law Firm may be able to help you come up with a complete list of benefits, based on the damages. Call us at 702-996-1224 and let us also advise and guide you through the legal process.
