What Is Compensation? The Use Of Money To Compensate You For Personal Injury
Find out what compensation is; how monetary compensation can attempt put you in the position prior to your accident occurring; how the amount of compensation for physical and emotional pain is calculated by your solicitor; why the amount of financial loss compensation depends on your individual circumstances.
What is compensation in personal injury claims?
Putting you back into the position before you were injured
Compensation is the name given to a money payment made to attempt to put you back into the position before you had your accident and suffered injury.
As you cannot take away the experience of an injury once it has happened – money is used to attempt to balance the pain for your suffering and repay financial loss experienced as a result of your personal injury.
Typical examples of personal injury claims
Personal injury claims may result due to injuries in a car accident, work accident, as a result of industrial injury, hospital error, etc.
Can you really be put back to the position before you were injured?
When you suffer injury – you can never truly be put back into the position you were prior to the accident, so the law decides on sums of money, which will compensate you for the fact that you have suffered.
Compensation payouts for all body parts and psychological injury
See our compensation payout amounts article – setting out different injuries and the amount of compensation you can expect to claim for pain, suffering and loss of amenity for each.
What are the different types of compensation you can recover?
Compensation for pain, suffering and loss of amenity
If you have suffered physical injury (such as whiplash in a car accident or a broken arm in a manual lifting injury at work) or psychological injury (such as post traumatic stress disorder following a serious motorcycle accident) – you experience pain and suffering from the injury itself and have a loss of amenity – reducing your ability to enjoy your life (including in partaking in your usual activities and hobbies).
You are therefore entitled to an amount of money, known as damages or compensation, which the courts have decided in past cases is a suitable amount to make amends for the pain you have suffered.
Every year there are thousands of accident claims, with victims who have suffered different types of injury, are listened to by judges at court who decide how much money the law permits each victim to receive in compensation for each injury type. Your solicitor can look at these court decisions (known as case law) and refer to them when negotiating a settlement of your claim and in so doing ensure you receive the correct amount for your injuries.
The compensation calculator for pain and suffering for injuries is typically the same no matter who you are – whether you are royalty, a premiership footballer, a secretary or labourer.
Watch out – sometimes slight distinctions can be drawn between compensation amounts between male and females and children (who may have longer to experience pain) and adults.
For example – only up until recently scarring of the face of a female attracted more compensation money than that for a man, as it was considered such scarring would emotionally affect a woman more than a man.
Compensation for financial loss and expense
You are entitled to compensation for financial loss and expense that you incur as a direct result of your injuries.
Financial loss and expenses is determined very differently than that for pain and suffering.
There is no fixed amount for financial loss and expenses, as it depends totally on your individual circumstances. If you were a footballer you might lose £100 000 a week in lost income, whereas a secretary may lose £600 a week.
See our salary compensation article for more details on how lost earnings are calculated (both past and future losses).
So what is compensation for financial loss? It is a variable amount of money calculated with reference to your individual circumstances and includes money you would have earned and expenses you have to pay as a direct result of your accident.
Personal Injury Compensation Summary
In this article we have explained how the payment of compensation monies are used by the courts in attempt to put you back into a position before you suffered your personal injury,
Specialist Solicitor Free Legal Help And Assistance
Every accident is different as is every potential claim, so you may wish to discuss your individual circumstances to make a decision as whether you wish to claim.
See our legal help and assistance options to choose the online or telephone assistance that is best for you.
