When you’re injured in an accident caused by someone else’s negligence, you might be entitled to compensation for your losses — or, in legal terms, damages. There are two types of damages available in all personal injury claims. These are:

• Economic damages, representing your tangible or provable losses, like the value of a totaled car, the cost of your ongoing medical treatment, and the wages you would have earned if you were not forced to take time off work because of your injuries.
• Non-economic damages, which are subjective and without a fixed value. Examples of non-economic damages include physical pain, emotional distress, and diminished quality of life. Each of these falls under a collective umbrella known as “pain and suffering”.

Calculating your economic damages is fairly straightforward, assuming you have receipts, wage slips, bills, invoices, quotes, estimates, or other physical proof of an item’s value or service’s cost.

But the concept of pain and suffering is far more complex. How do you put a dollar figure on something that is inherently priceless and so subjective? How do you prove you have a lower-than-average pain threshold and your injuries impact you more than most, making daily life near unbearable? What factors do insurance adjusters consider when determining how much they should pay for an accident victim’s pain and suffering?

San Antonio personal injury lawyer Dr. Louis Patino explains the various ways non-economic damages are calculated, how much you could receive for the impact of your injuries, and the steps you can take to maximize your recovery.

What Is Pain and Suffering?

The Legal Information Institute (LII) defines pain and suffering as the “physical discomfort and emotional distress that are compensable as non-economic damages.” While this legal definition might seem straightforward, the reality of pain and suffering is far more complex and can affect every aspect of an accident victim’s life.

Physical pain is something we’re all familiar with. A broken bone might prevent you from walking or using your arm. A traumatic brain injury might cause persistent, debilitating headaches. A spinal cord injury might result in partial or complete paralysis, robbing you of sensation and mobility. These injuries can cause unbearable suffering that severely restricts accident victims’ lives, even after extensive medical treatment and rehabilitation.

But equally devastating — though often overlooked — is the emotional distress that can persist long after physical injuries have healed. Depression might cause you to withdraw from friends and family. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might trigger panic attacks when you try to drive past the location of your accident. Anxiety might keep you awake at night, cause you to replay your trauma, or leave you worrying about mounting medical bills.

What makes emotional distress most insidious is that it’s often invisible. A cast on a broken wrist or stitches on a deep cut signal that you’ve suffered an injury and are likely in pain, but emotional trauma can lurk beneath the surface. It can ebb and flow — one moment, you might feel like your usual self, only to be despairing the next. Others suffer in silence, putting on a brave face when, beneath it all, they’re struggling to sleep, experiencing rapid mood swings, or developing disordered eating habits borne from a lack of appetite or a desperate attempt to grasp control over their situation.

While these injuries might not always be visible, they are no less real or severe than physical trauma.

Pain and suffering damages also compensate for loss of enjoyment of life — the ways your injuries have prevented you from engaging in the hobbies and activities that brought you joy. Perhaps you were an avid runner, but your injuries prevent you from doing your daily exercise. Or maybe you can’t pick up and play with your children or grandchildren because of chronic back pain. Activities we can so easily take for granted, like dancing with friends, playing sports, and tending to the garden, can become impossible.

These losses represent a profound change to a person’s quality of life, which is why the law recognizes that they deserve compensation.

But that brings us back to the central question: How much compensation is pain and suffering worth?

How Insurance Companies Calculate Pain and Suffering

Insurance companies typically use one of two methods to calculate pain and suffering damages: the multiplier method or the per diem approach.

The multiplier method involves taking your economic damages (such as medical bills, lost wages, and property damage) and multiplying the figure by a number between 1.5 and 5. The multiplier varies based on several factors, and insurers often use complex formulas to calculate the appropriate number. As a general rule, severe, life-changing, and permanent injuries typically warrant higher multipliers. A person who suffers a spinal cord injury that leaves them paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair-bound might need in-house care and lose their sense of independence, or their relationships may deteriorate as they struggle to adapt to their disability. In this scenario, the maximum multiplier might apply. If their economic damages totaled $250,000, their non-economic damages would be $1.25 million, resulting in a total payout of $1.5 million.

The per diem (Latin for “by the day”) method involves calculating a daily rate and multiplying it by the number of days the person has experienced pain and suffering and is expected to continue to suffer. This rate is often based on the individual’s income before the accident. For example, if your daily rate is $200 and you have suffered for one year, your damages would total $73,000.

If an accident victim has suffered a permanent injury with a life-altering impact, they might be entitled to damages for the rest of their life, based on an estimate of their life expectancy.

How to Document Your Pain and Suffering

Strong evidence is crucial for recovering fair compensation for pain and suffering. Medical records form the foundation of your claim, as they document the extent of your injuries and your treatment needs. However, additional evidence can strengthen your case.

Keeping a detailed pain journal helps show how your injuries affect your daily life. This information can be difficult to recall later, and you might not realize just how limited you are or how much your life has changed. It’s recommended to keep a dedicated journal or notebook to keep all the information in one place. You should document your pain levels, activities you can’t perform, emotional struggles, and how your injuries impact your relationships and overall quality of life. No matter how minor or irrelevant these details may seem, don’t hesitate to write them down. They could make a massive difference in how much compensation you can recover.

Testimony from friends, family members, and coworkers about changes they’ve observed in your abilities and general demeanor can provide powerful supporting evidence. If you’ve sought counseling for accident-related anxiety or depression, your mental health records and testimony from your therapist can also help establish the emotional impact of your injuries.

When to Consult an Attorney

Given the complexity of calculating pain and suffering damages and insurance companies’ tendency to minimize these claims, it’s highly advised to consult an experienced personal injury attorney. A lawyer can help gather appropriate evidence, counter insurance company tactics, and ensure all aspects of your pain and suffering are properly valued.

Most importantly, an attorney can prevent you from accepting a settlement that doesn’t fairly compensate you for the full extent of your physical and emotional injuries.