If you are involved in a serious Bay Area trucking accident, your first concern will usually be seeking immediate treatment for your injuries. If you suffer serious injuries in a San Francisco trucking accident, it may quickly become clear that tractor-trailer collisions can result in significant financial challenges. Many Bay Areas trucking accidents cause injuries that require a significant amount of medical care, which can easily reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. Because you may be unable to work, these financial obstacles frequently are compounded by a loss of family income. Sometimes people even need to pay for in-home care child care services or cleaning services because they are unable to perform household chores. In Part I, we discuss the challenges in determining the value of a trucking accident claim while Part II discusses specific factors relevant to the calculation of a tractor-trailer accident case.
At our San Francisco trucking accident law firm, we often receive phone calls from tractor-trailer accident victims who are anxious to know the value of their Bay Area tractor-trailer accident claim. Many times we are able to sit down with a prospective client and provide an initial estimate of the value of his or her trucking accident claim. It can be frustrating for injury victims when trying to decide how to proceed in the wake of serious collision involving a commercial truck not to have a more definitive statement about the precise value of one’s trucking accident claim. Sometimes it is easier to understand the challenges in providing the value of a trucking accident claim when one understands the many factors that may affect the value of a San Francisco trucking accident lawsuit.
One of the first steps in estimating the value of a San Francisco trucking accident claim is to determine the actual economic loss suffered by a trucking accident victim. Economic damages (called “special damages”) refer to the actual quantifiable economic loss suffered in a tractor-trailer accident. These types of damages include medical expenses, lost earnings, property damage and lost future earnings that result from your injuries. There are other types of economic damages that may also be relevant, such as costs incurred to hire someone to perform household chores because you are physically unable to perform domestic tasks while you are recovering.
Another important step in determining the value of your car accident claim is a full assessment of the extent of your injuries and need for follow-up care through the entire course of your recovery. Depending on the type of injury you suffer, an experienced San Francisco trucking accident attorney may be able to look at your economic loss (i.e. special damages) along with the nature of your injury and provide a general estimate of the potential range of recovery. Sometimes an attorney can look at similar types of cases and the amount of damages that were awarded for similar injuries in those cases. Insurance companies often look at the amount of your medical bills and multiply that amount by a certain factor depending on the severity of your injuries and combine that total with your economic loss to arrive at an initial offer of settlement.
However, our skilled trucking accident attorneys at the Law Office of Ian Zimmerman are often able to obtain far more than this simple mathematical approach to determining the value of your claim. This is why it is never a good idea to negotiate directly with the insurance adjuster. The insurance company knows it has an advantage if it can settle the case quickly before the full extent of your injuries are completely known, or you have obtained legal advice from an experienced San Francisco trucking accident attorney. Insurance companies make a point of knowing the skill level and past success of a particular Bay Area trucking accident law firm in determining the risk of taking their chances at trial. Because of this, it is important to retain San Francisco trucking accident lawyers with the experience and expertise of our attorneys at the Law Office of Ian Zimmerman so that you are negotiating from a position of strength.
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When you are involved in a tractor-trailer accident in San Francisco or elsewhere throughout the Bay Area, you may have a right to seek compensation for your injuries or loss of a loved one. If you are involved in a San Francisco trucking accident, our experienced San Francisco trucking accident attorneys have assisted many victims injured in motor vehicle accidents in the Bay Area. We invite you to contact The Law Office of Ian Zimmerman for your free initial consultation. We are open 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., speak Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, and are available for weekend, evening, home and hospital meetings and visits. We also offer free initial consultations and work exclusively on a contingency fee basis so that you pay nothing if we don’t win your case.