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What is the difference between bodily injury and personal injury?
Law is complicated and confusing. That’s why lawyers exist who went through years of school and standardized tests to learn how to represent you in court. One example of how slippery law can be is the differences between a personal injury and a bodily injury. They sound synonymous but are different and that difference is important.
Personal injury vs bodily injury
A personal injury is an injury that occurred as the result of some sort of accident–an auto accident, a slip & fall, a dog bite, or others–while bodily injury refers specifically to the physical injury to one’s body. This difference becomes important where your insurance is concerned which can have coverage for personal injury protection but not bodily injury liability. If you sustain an injury as the result of an accident you caused, you may not be covered for it.
How to calculate the cost
Some parts of your injury are easy to calculate. Your medical bills go into the cost and have hard digits right on the documents. This means ambulance costs, hospital bills, prescription costs, follow-up costs, and rehab costs. However, also part of this is lost wages if you can’t work and don’t have adequate disability coverage. Further, “pain and suffering” is calculated into the cost as well, quantifying the emotional and mental toll an accident can take on you and adding it to your potential settlement amount.
How a lawyer can help
When you get into an accident, it’s confusing and scary. The first thing to do is to take inventory of yourself and the accident site. Is everyone safe? Does anyone need medical attention? Call an ambulance if necessary and get yourself to a safe location. Once that’s done, document the accident site–the damage to you, the damage to any nearby property. Keep your mouth shut as well. Admitting fault in any way can come back to bite you later if your insurance determines you have a bodily injury claim rather than a personal injury one. Then call your lawyer and let them handle the battle with your insurance company and the ensuring administrative and documentation work. That’s what lawyers are for. They can negotiate with your insurance company, sue them on your behalf, gather and organize necessary documents, call experts for consultation and testimony, and find you witnesses. Having a lawyer is key in your personal injury or bodily injury case.
Your insurance company may try to pull a fast one on you to avoid paying you what you’re owed. You need to prove liability for an injury to avoid being slapped with a bodily injury claim rather than a personal injury claim. Contacting a Denver personal injury attorney can be the key to getting the money you’re owed for your lost wages, medical costs, and pain and suffering as a result of someone else’s negligence. And we want to help. Contact us today to get started on your consultation.