If you suffered an injury in a car crash and face both physical and financial challenges due to neck or back injuries, one of your most significant and most pressing questions is likely how much your injuries are worth. The value of a car accident claim relies heavily on the specific facts of that individual case. Florida law allows car accident victims different types of monetary damages they may pursue from the driver or another party who is at fault for their injuries, including: Economic Non-economic Economic Damages Economic damages allow injured parties to recover their actual cost to diagnose, treat, and recover from their injuries. Fortunately, economic damages are relatively easy to calculate and already have an actual dollar amount assigned to them. You can seek economic damages for anything you get a bill for, including: Medical treatment: Such as any ambulance transportation, your initial hospital stay—including the emergency department visit, X-rays, lab tests, diagnostic testing, and surgeries. Even after you leave the hospital, you may still have ongoing costs for follow-up medical appointments, prescriptions, or various types of therapies such as physical, speech, or occupational. In addition, some severe or catastrophic injuries also necessitate victims to undergo rehabilitative treatment, either residential or outpatient. Medical equipment: Victims can recover the expense of various types of medical equipment required due to their injuries, including wheelchairs and walkers, oxygen tanks and concentrators, or even prosthetic devices. Current lost wages: Even when injuries are relatively minor, victims often still miss work time to treat them or go to follow-up appointments. Severe injuries can result in lengthy work absences, making a car crash’s financial hardship even worse than just the medical bills that quickly add up. Future lost income: Some victims may permanently lose their ability to work, especially when there is damage to the spinal cord. In other cases, an accident victim can return to work but is unable to return to their previous job. As such, they have to take a different job that pays less because of their new physical or mental disabilities arising from the accident. They deserve compensation for the difference in wages over the rest of their working years. Unfortunately, these aren’t as easy to calculate as the wages you have already lost. Still, if you face a future long-term loss of wages, an actuary can calculate that amount. You may recover it from the person or party who injured you. You can calculate future wage loss by considering such factors as your pre-accident wage, professional training, education, the potential for advancement, age, and life expectancy. Services: If your injuries keep you from performing services for yourself or your household, you may recover the cost of hiring someone to do those services in a car accident claim. You can potentially receive compensation for the cost of childcare or transportation, grocery shopping, housekeeping, and maintenance, or lawn care. Since economic damages compensate victims for actual losses, it’s imperative that you carefully track all of these expenses. As stressful as it might be to see them, open your medical bills and place them in a file to give to your attorney. You should also keep receipts and invoices for things like medication, equipment, and services. To document your lost wages, ensure that you track not just any base salary lost but also any tips, retirement contributions, overtime, bonuses, or commissions you can not earn due to your injuries. When in doubt about keeping a piece of paper, save it, and tuck it into a file. By doing this, you will never regret not knowing how much your injuries cost you. You can always dispose of unnecessary receipts and bills later, but generally, you can’t get back what you have already lost or thrown away. Non-Economic Damages Non-economic damages represent intangible losses that are still very real. However, they often apply to your case if you suffered a physical impairment or disfigurement. Victims are allowed by law to recover damages for their inconvenience and physical and mental pain and suffering. Those with neck and back injuries may face paralysis and thus should seek compensation for the loss of use of their bodies and all that comes with it. Although non-economic damages are more challenging to prove, as they lack a monetary price tag, legal and medical experts can review your circumstances and assign an appropriate sum to these very real damages. Medical experts can testify about the level of pain that patients with the same condition usually experience and how long it might last. Counselors, mental health professionals, and psychiatrists can account for the level of mental anguish you have demonstrated to them. In some cases, it might even be appropriate for family members to share their insights about how you have changed since the accident.