Someone who has been seriously injured in a motor vehicle collision or hurt due to dangerous property conditions may need to seek compensation for their losses. Insurance coverage and personal injury lawsuits can potentially help people pay for property damage losses and injury-related expenses. The type of insurance available and the policy limits of the party to blame for the incident can influence whether legal action is necessary to secure proper compensation.
Accurately establishing the financial impact of an injury is crucial for those seeking compensation from another person or a business. Frequently, people make the mistake of focusing so much on their short-term, catastrophic losses that they fail to look at the big picture.
Medical costs can continue to accrue for years
When an injury is relatively severe, the person involved in the crash may have lingering or long-term symptoms. Obviously, the costs of emergency trauma care and medical treatment to stabilize someone’s condition can add up to tens of thousands of dollars and should play an important role in the process of securing compensation. However, injured individuals and their family members should not overlook the need to cover long-term care costs. People may require regular medical support, extensive rehabilitative care or around-the-clock medical supervision, depending on the extent of their injuries.
How expensive is long-term care?
Individuals with catastrophic injuries may require regular medical support for the rest of their lives. Brain injuries and spinal cord injuries are examples of conditions that have a strong association with major lifetime medical expenses. Even injuries with moderate short-term costs, like limb loss, could have major expenses later in life.
Those with injuries may experience more of a functional decline as they age and may require more intensive interventions. People therefore need to consider not just current estimates for long-term care support needs but also the likelihood of those support needs increasing as someone ages. The degree of support and local costs both contribute to the process of calculating estimated future long-term care expenses.
The average person may find such calculations to be prohibitively difficult. It is easy to overlook details or make mistakes that lead to significant shortfalls in future financial support. Having assistance when calculating long-term-injury related care costs and negotiating compensation arrangements can make a major difference for those coping with the medical consequences of a recent wreck or another serious personal injury.