What Damages Can You Sue For In A Car Accident?

Legally speaking, there is a reasonable range of acceptable compensation in any given case. If an insurance company offers you a payout below this range and you accept it, you will lose out on valuable funds. 

Car accident attorneys investigate and learn what this range should be in each case. Any offer below that will be summarily rejected — as it should be. However, accident victims outside the legal or insurance profession are usually unaware of how to calculate the range because they don’t know all the available damages. 

Economic Damages

Economic damages cover financial losses associated with a car accident. Each has a quantifiable dollar value typically found in a receipt, invoice, employee pay, and schedule records. 

Medical And Hospital Expenses

Depending on the injury, you could have significant medical and hospital expenses. For severe and catastrophic injuries, treatment, hospitalization, and rehabilitation can cost millions over the years. 

In accident cases with devastating injuries, you might need to receive some of the most expensive medical care available, including:

• Multiple surgeries
• Extensive hospitalization
• Extensive use of prescription and anesthetic medication
• Medical equipment and devices like wheelchairs and monitoring devices
• In-home care

Minor and moderate injuries also have extensive treatment costs. Although these typically don’t run into the mid-to-high hundreds of thousands or millions, they still add up to small fortunes.

Medical care associated with minor and moderate injuries includes:

• Surgery
• Prescription medication
• Multiple imaging and other tests
• Short hospital stays
• Medical equipment

Car accident injury victims must also typically pay emergency medical services costs. A three-minute ambulance ride to the nearest hospital to a car wreck can add a thousand dollars to your medical expenses. 

Lost Income And Economic Opportunity

If you’re knocked out of the work rotation because of a negligent driver, you deserve compensation for your lost income. If a car accident causes you to miss out on a week’s work, you should receive a week’s pay. You should get two years’ worth of income if you miss two years. 

As a car accident victim, you also have the right to pursue compensation for lost future income and economic activities. If a driver takes away your ability to engage in gainful employment for years, you can demand damages for the income you would have earned.

Injury-Related Expenses

Injury-related expenses accrue quickly after a car accident. They are necessary costs that sometimes cannot be avoided, such as:

• Gasoline expenses for medical visits
• Lodging costs for medical travel
• The price of hiring help for household tasks like cleaning, laundry, and shopping
• Costs to modify home or auto to accommodate new disabilities

Even if an injury is not catastrophic, these related expenses can mount and lead to financial exhaustion. Child-care costs are another potentially compensable damage, but this is not common. Under certain circumstances, your attorney may be able to recover child-care costs stemming directly from an injury accident. 

Property Damage

After a car crash, property damage claims often only involve damaged or destroyed autos. However, claims may also be made for other types of property, including:

• Mailboxes
• Buildings
• Fences
• Utility poles
• Fire hydrants

Auto owners can sometimes seek reimbursement for rental car expenses incurred while repairing or acquiring a new vehicle. 

Non-Economic Damages

Car accident victims suffer all manner of intangible harms that impact their lives as much as financial problems. Fortunately, they can pursue compensation for these losses as well. 

Pain And Suffering

Injuries can involve multiple types, including physical, mental, and emotional pain. Although pain is subjective, victims’ attorneys can present sufficient evidence to demonstrate actual pain and suffering. Evidence of pain and suffering might include:

• Pain treatment regimen from a qualified medical professional
• Loss of a limb and related mental anguish
• Long-term or permanent disfigurement
• Loss of enjoyment of relationships

Together, these impacts can sufficiently paint a picture of the level of suffering a car accident victim experiences.

Inconvenience

Inconvenience refers to the new difficulties an injury victim must endure due to their accident. For example, a person who becomes a quadriplegic for life is forever inconvenienced in life. Loss of a limb or various digits is another example of compensable inconvenience. 

Emotional Stress

Emotional stress is a common result of car accident injuries, especially in serious cases. Victims typically experience stress over:

• The pain they must endure
• A lack of mobility
• Impacted relationships
• Loss of employment
• Loss of independence
• The prospect of death

Accident victims also often feel stress from situational isolation. They find themselves isolated from friends and families due to the nature of their injuries, which can be very harmful to their mental health.

Impairment Of Quality Of Life

Injuries can significantly diminish the quality of someone’s life after an accident. What used to be enjoyable activities and pastimes can become out of reach for the injured. The joys of life disappear for many who must now try to find new enjoyable activities.

Many of the seriously injured do find new loves — but usually only after years of pain. Fortunately, this impairment to quality of life is also compensable under Colorado Law. 

Wrongful Death Damages

In the case of a car accident fatality, the victim’s family members can sue for car accident damages for the wrongful death. The damages available include grief, loss of companionship, and economic losses, such as loss of income or support the decedent would have provided to the family had they lived.  

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages, referred to as exemplary damages in Colorado, are sometimes available in personal injury cases, though not often. To be awarded such damages, the victim must prove that the defendant caused the car accident by committing willful or wanton behavior or through fraud. 

For example, a person who shoots a gun into a crowd and injures or kills someone can face a demand for exemplary damages. Keep in mind, however, that exemplary damages are only requested and awarded at trial. They do not form part of an auto insurance claim.

Nonetheless, experienced car accident attorneys know how to leverage the potential for punitive damages in settlement negotiations. 

Damages Caps

Car accident injury victims should be aware of caps for non-economic damages. Unfortunately, the current limits are too low to reflect current realities. For car accident victims, current non-economic damages top out at $250,000. Fortunately, these caps have been significantly raised with recent legislation. 

Beginning on January 1, 2025, personal injury claims will have an augmented cap of $1.5 million for non-economic damages. This limit will be increased periodically to reflect inflation. In the case of wrongful death, the cap sits at $2.125 million. 

Learn About The Damages You May Be Owed

Car accident victims frequently leave a lot of compensation behind when they do not have attorneys fighting for them. Insurance companies gladly cut quick checks to desperate accident victims without telling them they deserve more. All they need is an injury victim’s signature, and the deal is done. 

Meeting with a car accident lawyer is the strongly recommended step for any car accident victim. A car accident lawyer gives their client a more accurate picture of what they are owed. If you have been injured in a car accident, take prompt action to protect your compensation. Contact a car accident attorney for a free consultation.

Sources:

Guide to Calculating Costs. (2024).
Guidelines for Use of Durable Medical Equipment.
Raise Damage Limit Tort Actions. (2024).

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