How do I recover pain and suffering damages from a car accident?

If you are injured in a car accident, call Fran Murphy Law PLC today at 248-763-4111 to discuss your rights as it relates to car accidents.  If you are seeking personal insurance protection (PIP) benefits, click here.  PIP benefits are for medical expenses, wage loss benefits for the first three years after the accident, replacement services for the first three years after the accident, and attendant care benefits.  For the most part, these benefits are separate from pain and suffering damages.

To recover pain and suffering damages for injuries you received in a car accident, you cannot be more than 50% at fault for the accident.  The standard for recovering pain and suffering damages is you must suffer death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement.  A serious impairment of body function is an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects your general ability to lead your normal life.

What is a serious impairment of body function?

How do you show an insurance company that you sustained a serious impairment of body function?  If you are seriously injured in an accident that renders you paralyzed or with an amputation, it will be fairly obvious that you suffered a serious impairment of body function.  It is “objectively manifested” because the impairment can be seen – it’s not just based on what you say.  However, what if you suffer from back pain as the result of your car accident?  How do you show the insurance company that you’re seriously injured?

To show that your back pain is caused by the accident and is a serious impairment, you will need objective evidence.  Oftentimes this is in the form of diagnostic imaging such as CT scans, MRIs, or X-Rays.  These diagnostic tests can look at the interior of your body to see if you have any changes.  If a disc in your back herniates from the accident, that would generally be considered objective evidence of an injury.

What if the at-fault driver doesn’t have car insurance?

There are a lot of downsides to not carrying car insurance in Michigan.  For starters, it is a misdemeanor offense that carries a penalty of possible jail time.  If you don’t have car insurance and you get in a car accident and an insurance carrier pays PIP benefits to a driver, passenger, or pedestrian, you can be on the hook to reimburse the insurance carrier for what they pay out.  Some people are on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in PIP benefits even if they weren’t at fault for the accident simply because they did not carry car insurance.

If are seriously injured in a car accident, usually it is difficult to recover pain and suffering damages unless the at-fault driver has car insurance, which includes bodily injury coverage.  If the at-fault driver does not have car insurance, you can purchase what’s called uninsured motorist (UM) or underinsured motorist (UIM) benefits.  If you are seriously injured but the at-fault driver cannot pay through their insurance company, you may be able to recover pain and suffering damages through your own insurance company.  To do this, you will need to buy UM or UIM benefits.  You should buy the highest amount of coverage you can afford because if you’re catastrophically injured by an uninsured driver, you may not be able to recover much.