Stephen Hasner | Car Accidents | January 20, 2025
Have you sustained neck and back injuries in an auto collision? Average neck and back settlements from car accidents vary depending on many factors, including state jurisdiction, injury severity, length of medical treatment, and lost income. Geographical location is another consideration impacting neck and back settlements—for example, heavily populated or urban areas may expect higher averages. The experience of the attorney you choose to represent you may also significantly influence your settlement amount. Consult an experienced car accident lawyer to explore case strategies and the potential for a substantial settlement.
Common Neck and Back Injuries From Car Accidents
Depending on the nature of a collision, accident victims may sustain minor to life-altering neck and back injuries. These injuries are often accompanied by significant pain and discomfort, which can make management a challenge and can result in lifelong pain. Standard neck and back injuries from car accidents that you may seek compensation for include the following:
- Whiplash: A common neck injury after a car accident, whiplash strains the muscles and ligaments in the cervical spine. Symptoms can show up immediately or take several days to develop. Although it’s generally a shorter-lived injury, some injured parties experience chronic effects, including pain for several months or years following a collision.
- Herniated Discs: When the force of a car accident causes the soft inner part of a spinal disc to push through its outer layer, it causes a herniated disc. These injuries compress nerves, causing pain, numbness, tingling, and weakness in affected areas.
- Cervical and Back Fractures: Broken bones in the neck and back are common injuries in car accidents. Cervical fractures (broken necks) are critical due to the potential for neurological complications that affect breathing and movement in the extremities.
- Soft Tissue Injuries: Soft tissue injuries include contusions (bruises), strains, sprains, and tears in the ligaments, tendons, and muscles of the neck and back.
- Lumbar Spine Injuries: Lumbar spine injuries affect the lower back and commonly occur in rear-end car accidents. They range from spinal cord injuries requiring surgery to sciatic pain treated through less invasive treatments.
- Facet Joint Injuries: Referring to the damage to small joints located between the vertebrae in the spine, facet joint injuries are caused by the sudden impact of a collision and can cause significant pain and stiffness.
Documentation is key. Injured parties must make and maintain medical appointments and follow through on therapy exercises: the more treatment, the more detailed the medical records. Accident victims should also consistently journal about their pain and suffering and how injuries impact them daily. A pain journal can serve as evidence for establishing non-economic damages with insurance companies or judges and juries.
Factors That Impact Neck and Back Settlements from Car Accidents
Average neck and back settlements from car accidents vary depending on many factors, including the severity of your injuries, healthcare treatment and costs, lost income and earning capacity, and insurance policy limits. The pain and suffering you experience, how your injuries impact your quality of life, and permanent impairment and disability are also significant factors.
Severity of Injuries
The most significant factor influencing your neck and back settlement amount is the severity of your injuries. Life-altering injuries, such as permanent impairments and disability, are worth substantially more due to their overall impact on quality of life. When relevant to your claim, attorneys may determine a value for permanent impairment and disability. Catastrophic injuries, such as paralysis, limb loss, severe brain damage, and vision and hearing losses, usually result in higher settlement amounts.
Healthcare Treatment and Costs
The more severe the injuries, the greater the need for extensive healthcare treatments, which add up quickly. These treatments may include surgical and orthopedic care, as well as primary and follow-up care. Rehabilitation service costs, such as physical therapy, chiropractor adjustments, massages, and occupational and vocational therapy, also influence neck and back settlements from car accidents.
Lost Earnings
When injuries are severe enough, they can cause you to miss work, impacting your neck and back settlement amount. The more work you miss, the higher the settlement will likely be. Your attorney will calculate lost income to ensure they pursue monetary losses. Additionally, your economic damages are often used to help determine the value of your non-economic damages. That means the more substantial your healthcare costs and lost earnings, the higher the value of your non-economic damages will usually equal.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering are primary non-economic damage car accident victims seek compensation for after sustaining neck and back injuries. It includes the physical pain, emotional stress, and psychological impact experienced after a car crash. Symptoms of anxiety, post-accident depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are also considered. The severity of injuries directly impacts pain and suffering.
Impact on Quality of Life
The impact injuries have on your quality of life are factored into non-economic damages. These damages refer to the adverse effects injuries have on your overall well-being. The impact on quality of life includes physical limitations, such as loss of limb function, chronic pain, and reduced mobility. They also entail the social disruption life-altering injuries and disabilities create with maintaining relationships and a healthy social life. The impact on quality of life damage factors an inability to work at the same capacity or job position due to physical limitations.
Insurance Policy Limits
Insurance policy limits directly impact neck and back settlements after a car accident. The policy limit is the highest amount an insurer will pay for a car accident claim. If the expenses of injuries and damages exceed policy limits, the at-fault driver may be liable for the remaining amount. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have the means to pay the remaining amount. It’s important to note that policy limits don’t automatically ensure an injured party will recover the maximum amount permitted.
Compensation in Average Neck and Back Settlements from Car Accidents
From injuries to neck and back settlement amounts, no two car accidents produce the same results. Damages recoverable in one claim may not be relevant to the next. An experienced car accident lawyer will comprehensively investigate and value the damages in your claim. The process includes calculating economic damages and determining the value for non-economic damages. When the conditions of a car accident are so severe they warrant a lawsuit and the need to punish a defendant, a jury may award punitive damages. However, these aren’t paid by insurers and are reserved for particularly offensive circumstances, such as a drunk driving collision involving multiple injured or deceased victims.
Economic Damages
Economic damages constitute a substantial portion of your car accident claim. They are the monetary losses the auto collision costs you despite not being your fault, and they are recoverable when proven. Standard economic damages calculated into neck and back settlements from car accidents are as follows:
- Healthcare Costs: Medical expenses are substantial economic damages your attorney will calculate. These costs include emergency care, surgeries, hospitalizations, rehabilitation services, prescriptions, copays, and deductibles. Injured parties with health insurance may have had these costs covered. However, the auto insurance company is ultimately liable for the damages. Once recovered, your health insurer gets reimbursed.
- Future Medical Expenses: An attorney will consult medical experts or a life care planner to estimate the cost of healthcare treatments necessary in your future and include those expenses in your beck and back injury settlement. This can involve a medical cost estimate (MCE) covering a brief period of medical services, a surgical cost estimate (SCE) for expenses associated with one procedure and post-operative services, or a life care plan (LCP) estimating the lifetime cost of medical care.
- Lost Earnings: Income losses can include more than just a paycheck. Attorneys will calculate lost overtime, bonuses, tips, commissions, and benefits, like medical and retirement. When injuries cause a diminished capacity or inability to return to work, lawyers will work with vocational experts to determine lost earning capacity and future earnings.
- Property Damages: Property damages in car accidents usually include vehicle repairs or replacement costs. They also cover rental cars and damages to commercial or residential buildings, fencing, mailboxes, portable electronic devices, and clothing.
- Domestic Services: Injured parties requiring the assistance of hired household services can include those expenses in their economic damage calculations. These services include housecleaning, laundry, cooking, errands like grocery shopping, and childcare.
Most economic damages can be calculated by their billing statements and receipts. You should provide copies of all paper documentation demonstrating monetary losses. You may need to provide paystubs, bank statements, or a lost income statement to prove lost earnings. The latter can also verify things like lost non-salary compensations (tips, commissions, bonuses) and lost opportunities for promotion due to injuries or disability.
Non-Economic Damages
The non-economic damages in your car accident claim are often called pain and suffering. They involve the intangible losses an injured party suffers because of the collision. Depending on the severity of your injuries, treatment, and lifelong prognosis, non-economic damages may include the following:
- Acute and chronic pain conditions
- Emotional suffering and anguish
- Post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD)
- A loss of enjoyment of life
- A loss of consortium (companionship)
- Decreased quality of life
- Lost years (shortened life expectancy)
- Loss of bodily function
- Sexual dysfunction
- Lifelong pain management
- Development of a substance use disorder from prescribed pain management
- Permanent impairments (disfigurement, amputation, paralysis)
Detailed medical records and expert witness testimony are valuable for establishing non-economic damages in a car accident case. However, a post-accident journal is viable evidence when an injured party remains consistent and adequately documents the details of their pain and suffering. Injured parties should detail their pain levels on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the worst) and other symptoms of injuries, such as numbness, tingling, and weakness in extremities.
How an Experienced Car Accident Attorney Can Help
An experienced car accident attorney will ensure the adequate completion and filing of paperwork relating to the claims and legal processes after a collision. They provide peace of mind so you can focus on maintaining medical and rehabilitation appointments necessary for your recovery. A lawyer handling your neck and back settlement from car accidents will help by doing the following:
- Handling Insurance Communications: Having an attorney handle insurance company communications ensures you don’t fall victim to their usual tactics. To minimize losses, insurance companies will deny and undervalue claims by getting injured parties to admit partial or complete liability or by downplaying the severity of injuries. They start by calling almost immediately after an accident, knowing many injuries have delayed symptoms. It’s also a tactic to speak to you before you’ve secured a lawyer and they can no longer contact you. If they secure a recorded statement, they will scrutinize anything they can use to deny liability. Having a lawyer handle communications protects you from these standard insurance company practices.
- Investigating the Collision: The investigation process involves gathering and preserving valuable evidence before it is lost. Evidence can include photos and video of the accident scene, medical records, the police report, and physical evidence, such as vehicle debris. An attorney may work with accident reconstruction specialists to recreate the circumstances of the collision—making it easier to demonstrate liability to insurers and juries. Your lawyer will also identify and interview witnesses to gather vital information they can use to prove negligence and liability.
- Calculating Damages: To maximize neck and back settlements, lawyers will thoroughly investigate all areas where you have suffered losses. These include economic and non-economic damages and often require the assistance of economists, vocational experts, and healthcare professionals— with whom attorneys work in their professional network.
- Negotiating With Insurance Companies: After valuing the damages in your back and neck injury claim, your lawyer will send a demand letter for compensation to liable insurance companies—starting the negotiations process. It’s common for negotiations to involve multiple rounds of discussion before agreeing on settlement terms.
Most car accident claims are resolved during negotiations. However, sometimes parties cannot agree on terms, and your lawyer may discuss the need to file a civil lawsuit. In that case, they would represent you in court, presenting your case before a judge and jury. After hearing the evidence of your case, the jury determines whether to award compensation.
Contact a Car Accident Attorney
Consult an experienced personal injury attorney to discuss average neck and back settlements from car accidents with circumstances similar to yours. Once you uncover your case’s specifics, they can provide valuable legal insight into what you may expect. Schedule a free case evaluation now.
