Semi-Truck Accident Settlement Calculators: Are They Accurate?

Semi-truck accidents can turn your life upside down within seconds. The reason for this is that these large and powerful vehicles cause a tremendous amount of force and impact in an accident, which can result in traumatic and devastating injuries. If you were in one of these crashes, you may find yourself in the middle of a difficult recovery process, watching your medical bills and expenses continue to accumulate at a fast rate.

This can cause intense stress and worry as you wonder how much compensation you will receive and whether or not it will be enough to cover your losses. During this time, many truck accident victims turn to semi-truck accident settlement calculators to help them determine how much their claims are worth.

What is a semi-truck accident settlement calculator?

If you have been involved in a semi-truck accident, you may have spoken to an insurance company or searched the internet for ways to determine how much compensation you will receive for your accident. Most insurance companies provide various tools, such as a semi-truck accident settlement calculator, to calculate an accident victim’s potential settlement.

While you may be happy to have found this easy and convenient tool, you must know and understand that insurance companies are never on your side. Their ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of compensation that they have to give to you regardless of how hurt or disabled you are from the accident.

With that in mind, you should be careful when using or trusting semi-truck accident settlement calculators. Insurance company calculators may leave out important information that could increase the value of your claim. As a result, you may be settling for less than you deserve and leaving much-needed compensation on the table.

How do these calculators typically work?

Semi-truck accident settlement calculators usually ask you to enter certain information or to make general guesses about your damages. Then, they use a special multiplication formula to calculate your damages and provide you with a specific amount. You may think that everyone uses these calculators and that they are a normal part of the legal process. However, there is no real way for a simple tool like this to truly estimate all of your damages.

What are the disadvantages of semi-truck settlement calculators?

There are no real advantages to using a semi-truck settlement calculator. However, there are several disadvantages to using these calculators, such as:

• They offer no personalization: Semi-truck settlement calculators offer no personalization. This means that they cannot understand your unique circumstances. As a result, the tool receives your information and makes a general guess on how much compensation you should get instead of being able to grasp what injuries you sustained fully, the recovery you have ahead, and the lifelong effects you will experience.
• There is no legal analysis involved: When you use a semi-truck accident settlement calculator, there is no legal analysis involved. These tools cannot fully evaluate your case, provide relevant advice, or even determine whether multiple parties are liable or if laws were violated, which can affect your settlement.
• They do not know how to negotiate: These calculators also lack the ability to negotiate. Without any negotiations, the truck accident settlement calculator is unable to advocate or fight for the settlement you need and deserve.

Why you should work with a San Antonio truck accident lawyer to obtain fair and accurate compensation

Working with a San Antonio truck accident lawyer is critical to obtaining fair and accurate compensation. An experienced and skilled lawyer can help you do this by:

• Investigating your truck accident: A truck accident attorney will fully investigate your truck accident. They may go to the crash scene, look at the damage caused to your vehicle, analyze every piece of evidence related to your accident, determine any legal violations, and find out who is liable.
• Helping you identify and calculate your losses: It is extremely important that you take the time to identify every single loss you have experienced since the truck accident. Your lawyer can help you identify each loss and then work with accountants, medical providers, and other professionals to calculate them accurately.
• Looking at the entire situation in depth: Your truck accident lawyer will look at your entire situation in depth. For example, they will look at your medical records, your doctor’s notes, your imaging tests, and your medical bills to gain an understanding of your injuries and medical treatments. This is important because two people can experience the same type of accident and appear to have the same injuries. However, their healing and recovery experiences can be completely different, meaning they could be entitled to different compensation amounts.
• Negotiating with insurance companies and the opposing parties: An attorney will use their experience and skills to negotiate with the insurance company and the opposing parties. This can help maximize your compensation and ensure you get every last penny you are owed.
• Fighting for your rights and best interests: While insurance companies do not care about your rights or have your best interests in mind, your attorney is your advocate. By working with a lawyer, you can have peace of mind knowing that they will take your case seriously, empathize with you, and do all they can to help you receive the financial recovery you need to heal and move forward with your life.

Factors that can increase your truck accident settlement

The following are several factors that may increase your truck accident settlement:

• Your medical costs: Your medical costs include any type of medical-related treatment that you need after a truck accident, including ambulance rides, surgeries, medical procedures, doctor’s office visits, overnight hospital stays, medical devices, prescriptions, and more.
• Your lost income: If you are out of work due to your injuries, your lost income may be a factor that can increase your truck accident settlement. Your lawyer will determine how much income you have lost by multiplying your salary or hourly wage by the number of days, weeks, or hours you have missed and will miss.
• Your property damage: Truck accidents often result in catastrophic property damage. If your vehicle suffered serious or irreparable damage, this will likely increase your truck accident settlement.
• Your pain and suffering: The noneconomic damages you suffer will fall under pain and suffering. However, it is important to know that some of the most traumatic and devastating losses are noneconomic damages, which can drastically increase your truck accident settlement. This may include mental anguish, emotional distress, chronic pain, diminished quality of life, and more.
• Your lifelong effects: Lifelong effects are also critical to your settlement. Someone who has long-term and permanent effects due to an accident is likely to receive more compensation than a person who is expected to make a full recovery in the near future. A few examples of lifelong effects are disability, paralysis, scarring and disfigurement, amputations, and more.

Have you recently suffered injuries in a truck accident in San Antonio? If so, consider hiring a truck accident lawyer to guide you through the difficult legal process. The legal team at Pat Maloney: Accident & Injury Team is ready to answer any of your questions. Please call our office or submit our contact form to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation in San Antonio today.