Who pays for lost wages in a car accident

If you have been in a car accident caused by another driver, you are entitled to receive compensation for lost work income due to the incident or resulting injuries. You can claim loss of wages for the period you were unable to work and time lost receiving medical care for your injuries.

In order to make a successful a personal injury claim, it is essential to hire a lawyer after a car accident. We have put together a brief overview of what to expect when filing for lost work income after a car accident.

What Can You Claim?

Many people get confused as to what ‘lost work income’ encompasses. Claiming loss of earnings could occur because you needed to take six months off work due to the resulting injuries from a car accident. In this time you may lose clients or even your job, which can have major financial implications.

Who is Responsible for Paying?

When you lodge a motor vehicle accident compensation claim it is actually made against the Compulsory Third Party (CTP) insurer of the person responsible. This means that it doesn’t matter if the person at blame can’t afford to pay compensation.

If they do not have insurance or are unable to be identified, the claim is then brought against the Nominal Defendant (a statutory body established under the MAI Act which responsible for compensating injured victims of negligent drivers who cannot be identified or do not have CTP insurance.

Time Limits for Making a Claim

Claiming loss of earnings must be lodged within six months of the accident. The CTP insurer of the negligent driver will most likely cover compensation when the injured party has lost an amount over $5,000, or if their recovery time exceeds six months.

If you do not file your claim within this time frame, you may be granted an extension by the courts. However, this is only likely if you had special circumstances that hindered you from making your claim earlier.

Filing Your Claim

Before you file your personal injury claim, make sure you have all the supporting evidence that you need. If you are employed, your best source of evidence would be past payslips dating at least 6 months prior to your car accident.

In order to prove that you were incapable of working during your period of absence, you will also have to provide supporting medical documents. You must be able to show that you tried to mitigate your losses by returning to work as soon as you were able to when claiming loss of earnings.

For self-employed individuals, claiming lost work income after a car accident can be more tricky. Contact your accountant immediately and inform them that your business will be incurring a loss due to your injury. Have your accountant gather details of your accounts from the past three months prior to the accident.

You should also collect documents outlining your duties such as work diaries, invoices and contracts that you were unable to follow through on because of your accident. This should be a sufficient amount of information to calculate the net loss to your business.

The outcome of your claim will depend on whether you have a full-time or part-time job, regular or casual employment, hourly, weekly or monthly pay, or if you are self-employed.

Loss of Future Earnings

If you have sufficient evidence to show that your injury will have an ongoing effect on your future earnings then you can include this in your personal injury claim. Consult with your doctor for a comprehensive assessment of your injuries.

Be sure to outline your capabilities and limitations once you have reached your maximum point of recovery. Note the resulting impact this will have on the regular duties you performed prior to the accident and financial implications of different career options.

How Long Will Your Claim Take?

The court will usually reach a settlement once the individual has reached a stable point where they are not likely to improve or get worse. However, this is dependant on the severity of your injuries. For example, if you have only suffered relatively minor injuries, you likely to reach a stable point within a few months.

In this time, it may be tempting to settle your claim. Legal proceedings involving lost work income after a car accident can get lengthy and frustrating. However, it is advised that you do not make any decisions until you are fully aware of the value of your claim. Ensure that you consult with your lawyer in regards to settling.

For assistance on claiming lost work income after a car accident, get in touch with the compensation lawyers at Schreuders today.

If you've lost income because of your car accident injuries, that's a recoverable component of your damages, but you'll need to back up your claim with the right documentation.

If you've been in a car accident where somebody else was at fault, and you've had to miss work as a result -- or you've missed out on other income opportunities because of your car accident injuries and resulting limitations -- you might be wondering if (and how) you can recover for these kinds of losses. Read on for the answers.

Lost Income and Car Accident Damages

When you decide to file a car accident lawsuit against the person responsible for the crash (the "defendant"), you (the "plaintiff") are allowed to recover any lost wages that resulted from the accident.

The most obvious example is when a physical injury, like a broken leg, prevents you from doing your job. In that case, you are entitled to recover the wages you would have received had your leg not been broken and had you still been able to work. If you couldn't work for two months, then you are entitled to recover the amount you would have normally been paid during those two months. Other debilitating and disabling car accident injuries -- including psychological injuries caused by the accident, like PTSD -- are also grounds for recovering lost wages, if they are severe enough.

Compensation for "Lost Earning Capacity"

If a traffic accident causes a permanent or long-lasting disability that affects your ability to earn money for an indefinite time into the future, then you may be able to recover damages for "lost earning capacity."

Even if you can still work, you can recover if the disability prevents you from having a higher paying job than you likely would have had if not for the disability. Keep in mind that chronic pain and general loss of stamina and endurance usually qualify as disabling injuries.

Aggravation of a Pre-Existing Injury Counts

To recover for lost wages and/or lost earning capacity, the auto accident must be the direct cause of the injury that prevented you from working. However, that does not mean that pre-existing injuries don't count.

If the accident made a pre-existing injury worse so that now you cannot work -- or work as well as you could before the accident -- you can still recover the full amount of your lost wages and/or earning capacity.

You Need to Give Reasonably Certain Proof of Your Wages or Lost Earning Capacity

The easiest way to prove lost wages is to submit your most recent paycheck prior to the injury. If you are self-employed, you'll need to submit proof of what you normally would have earned, for example invoices from the same period during the previous year. You can also recover for lost tips and other non-salary benefits if you have decent proof.

It is a little more tricky to prove lost earning capacity, since some speculation about the future is necessary. Depending on your line of work, and the type and severity of the injury, the fact that you will have a diminished earning capacity can often times be assumed (i.e. you only have to prove the injury, not what will happen because of it).

The harder part is proving how much you should recover. Comparing paychecks before and after the injury is the easiest way to prove the extent of lost earning capacity, but it is often not that simple.

Usually, some type of financial or economic expert witness will be necessary to figure out a ballpark number for what you would have earned were it not the disabling injury, minus what you will likely earn given the disability. Evidence (usually testimony) about your character traits and work habits, education and intentions to change careers can also be factored in. Matters can be made more complicated if your disability is unlikely to be permanent and a best guess is needed about how long it will last.

For all these reasons and more, often the biggest litigation battle after a car accident involving a serious injury is not who was at fault, but the nature and extent of the injured person's damages. If the case actually goes to trial, the jury has a lot of leeway to choose how much should be awarded -- they are allowed to use their "common sense" to pick a number, even if the proof is vague and speculative (as long as it isn't too vague and speculative).

Learn more about Damages in a Personal Injury Case.

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What are included in a motor vehicle accident?

How much compensation do you get for a car accident in Australia?

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