After you’ve been injured in car accident, slip and fall, dog bite, on the job injury or other personal injury, you may have injuries to your neck and back. You may have broken bones or cuts and scrapes. In the worse cases of course, there may be even be death or dismemberment. You will incur medical bills because of these injuries and these bills are part of your claim of injury or your damages. Medical bills are often referred to as ‘specials’ within the insurance industry. Medical bills are part of your potential recovery against the wrongdoer.

Another element of recovery is lost wages or lost time from work. This includes salaried employees and those that work for an hourly wage. When you have sustained a personal injury, and you have to miss work or work part-time, you may be able to recover these damages against the person that has caused the accident.

Your right to recover against the person accountable may also include pain and suffering. Pain and suffering is more than medical bills or lost wages. Medical bills and lost wages are the portion of your personal injury claim that are easy to calculate because each involves numbers that can be summed up. Pain and suffering may be a multiple of the medicals bills or other number assigned by a computer program used by an insurance adjuster. Whatever the case may be, pain and suffering is an attempt to compensate you for the time that you are in pain after an accident. Despite the difference in terminology, "pain and suffering" is a term used to describe how your life was affected by the accident and your ability to carry out your activities of daily living. Examples of activities of daily living include taking care of children, driving, getting dressed and caring for yourself.

There is another element called "loss of normal life". This element is sometimes called disability. Loss of normal life is the temporary or permanent diminished ability to enjoy life. In more severe cases there may be the element of permanency to the case. Do you have a permanent injury diagnosed by a doctor? Will you continue to suffer pain years after the accident caused your injury? Maybe you have a permanent scar or deformity. These injuries may be compensated as permanent. If you have been in a personal injury accident, please call KEL Attorneys today for more information.