If you’ve been injured in a truck accident that wasn’t your fault, you may be dealing with injuries, financial stress, and uncertainty about the future. Perhaps you’ve gotten an offer from an insurance company, but you’re not sure if it’s fair. One of the most important questions you likely have is how much your claim may be worth. The insurance adjuster seems nice, but are they really looking out for your interests?
As a personal injury attorney, I’ve seen injury victims get taken advantage of by insurance adjusters. By the time they share their stories with me, it’s sometimes too late. So I’ve put together some information on truck accidents and how you can try to tell if a settlement offer is fair.
How Do Truck Accidents Differ from Car Accidents?
The main difference is that the size and weight of trucks and commercial vehicles such as tractor-trailers make them significantly more dangerous. Trucks make up only 4% of the vehicles on the road and yet they account for 10% of all highway deaths.
A typical large truck or tractor trailer can weigh anywhere between 20,000 to 80,000 pounds while the average car weighs only 3,000 to 4,000 pounds. In addition, trucks can be so heavy that they require much more stopping distance when braking than cars, often making it more difficult for truck drivers to avoid collisions. A passenger vehicle traveling at 65 mph would require around 300 feet to stop, about the length of a football field, while a fully loaded tractor trailer requires more than 500 feet to stop.
You see why truck accidents can be so much more dangerous than collisions between two passenger cars.
Another difference is the number of parties who may be held liable after a truck accident. Car accident claims typically only involve the drivers and their insurance companies. But with truck accident claims, potentially liable parties include:
- the truck driver
- the trucking company
- the truck manufacturer
- vendors who provided services to the truck
- the owner of the truck’s cargo
It’s the liable party’s insurance company that generally pays any settlement you receive. But that simple concept can get complicated in real life. Trucking companies often have multiple and various business entities, which can make truck accident cases much more complex than your average car accident.
For these reasons and more, you should pursue the full compensation you may deserve by filing your trucking accident claim as soon as possible after the accident.
What’s the Average Truck Accident Settlement Amount?
Your case is unique. Every commercial truck accident case is unique. That’s why the average truck accident settlement amount doesn’t mean much (plus there’s no accurate way to determine it). What really matters is whether the offer you’ve received in your case is fair.
You have a right to be made whole as much as possible after you’ve been injured by a negligent party in a trucking accident. Most insurance adjusters want to pay out as little as possible or even avoid making a settlement offer on your trucking accident claim at all. This is why you should contact a truck accident attorney to help deal with the adjuster and increase your chances of receiving a fair settlement offer.
Don’t be intimidated by an insurance adjuster trying to reduce or deny the full compensation you may deserve. Contact the truck accident lawyers at James Scott Farrin today at 1-866-900-7078 for a free case evaluation.
What Factors Determine the Value of a Truck Accident Settlement?
Physical injuries
The severity of your injuries is one of the most important factors in determining how much compensation you may be able to receive for your truck accident settlement. Generally speaking, the worse you’re injured and the greater your medical needs, the larger the potential settlement will be.
This is a good example of why an average settlement amount means little. Even if two people suffer similar injuries, it may impact them differently. A racer who loses his leg may be affected differently than a painter with the same loss. Every small detail of your situation can make a big difference.
Due to the size and weight of commercial trucks, it’s common for those involved in truck crashes to have severe injuries causing significant pain and suffering. Hospitalization can result in medical bills that accumulate and affect your credit if they go unpaid for too long. Being injured can also mean lost wages due to being unable to work, making it difficult to pay your medical expenses.
Emotional injuries
Besides the physical trauma that can occur due to trucking accidents, there is also the emotional trauma and pain and suffering. A terrifying wreck can result in mental health concerns such as:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Depression
- Anxiety
Symptoms can make it impossible to work, leading to lost wages. Treatments often include expensive therapies and medications that also result in medical bills that can drain your resources and can affect your credit.
Wrongful death
In the unfortunate event of a truck accident resulting in the death of a loved one, a wrongful death claim can be filed by the surviving family members. Settlements for wrongful death claims in truck accidents may provide compensation for burial costs, medical costs, loss of income, emotional trauma, and loss of companionship.
Truck accident negligence cases involving the death of loved ones are especially tragic and should result in fair compensation for surviving family members.
Vehicle Damage
If your vehicle was involved in a truck accident, there’s a high likelihood it was significantly damaged if not totaled. You may handle your property damage claim separately than your claim for bodily injury. If not, the cost of repairing or replacing your vehicle can affect your possible settlement amount. If you had valuable property inside the vehicle and that property was damaged or destroyed, then that could also be a factor in any settlement amount you receive.
So What Is Your Truck Accident Claim Worth?
As you’ve seen by now, every case is different and every detail matters. The best way to determine what a fair settlement might be in your situation is to get a free case evaluation from one of our attorneys.
We’ve helped more than 65,000 people, and we can help you, too. Some truck accident settlement amounts we’ve won for clients include:1
- $4,500,000 commercial truck accident settlement for a man who was injured after a tractor-trailer struck him.
- $2,000,000 commercial truck accident settlement for a woman who was injured when a company truck struck her vehicle.
- $1,000,000 commercial truck accident settlement for a family who was injured after a tractor-trailer struck the vehicle in which they were riding.
There are just some of the results that we achieved for our clients. See more settlement results and testimonials.1
And we work on a contingency fee basis, meaning we don’t get an attorney’s fee unless we recover for you.2
Contact us online today or call us now at 1-866-900-7078.
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