Lots of participants in traffic accidents mistakenly believe that the amounts of insurance payments depend on the severity of injuries. Accordingly, they hope for large payments with a severe injury, and they make do with small compensations when it comes to minor injuries. It is a fundamentally wrong position. The severity of the injury is one of the components in calculating the amount of insurance compensation. In the practice of the Patkin & Partners Law Office, there are examples where minor injuries (as estimated by the injured people) resulted in payments of hundreds of thousands of shekels.
Typically, the calculation of compensation for participants in traffic accidents is based on the injury caused by the accident, the age of the injured people, and their salary rate. At the same time, the salary rate will be the key factor affecting the amount of insurance compensation. In other words, people of different professions with the same injury and age will receive different amounts of compensation, as their salary is multiplied by the years that they could work. Consider an example when two people born in the same year became participants in an accident. They received identical injuries, but the first participant is a nurse in a kindergarten with a minimum salary of 6-7 thousand shekels, and the second injured one works as a programmer of a large IT company with incomes of several tens of thousands of shekels. These two people will get a different amount of insurance compensation.
What becomes a key factor when the participants in traffic accidents are already retired, and calculation of compensation based on the salary rate is incorrect to apply? In this situation, small one-time sums that are usually paid to pensioners by insurance companies seem logical and satisfactory. Injured retirees are usually willing to be content with this. It is also a fundamentally wrong position.
There is a significant fact in such cases that many people do not use and, as a result, lose their right to a substantially larger compensation. If, as a result of an injury, an older person needs to hire special staff to help with housework – metapelet (an aged care worker), he has the right to include in insurance compensation a need for future costs of assistance in housekeeping. Even if he needs the help of metapelet a couple of hours a week. It is already a reason to demand a larger compensation from the insurance company. The point is that the compensation of the injured party, in this case, includes some future costs that will arise as a result of an accident.
Older people usually get injured in an accident in public transport or when crossing a road as pedestrians. The defendant is mostly an insurance company in which the vehicle involved in an accident is insured. Thus, it is necessary to provide certificates for the insurance company of the defendant stating that the person needs the help of a specialized worker. The amount of expenses to hire the worker is considered in compensation, similarly to the salary for a young specialist being injured.
There are companies in Israel that specialize in hiring metapelet and providing aged care services. It is enough to contact them and request help for just a couple of hours a week. It is not a very big expense. But this fact will help in the future to get the right to insurance compensation, tens of times higher than what a pensioner would otherwise receive.
One can often obtain the assistance of metapelet from Bituah Leumi for free, and it will also affect the size of the payment, since the assistance from Bituah Leumi is provided temporarily, and the need for metapelet will be constant.
In our practice, there have been a lot of cases when the insurance company, having received a certificate stating that the injured pensioner required the help of metapelet, significantly increased the sum of payments in comparison with the initial one. For example, the initial amount of compensation for one of the clients was 7 thousand shekels. He asked for the help of metapelet after consulting our car accident lawyers, and they managed to increase insurance compensation to the amount of 70 thousand shekels.
In conclusion, it is necessary to remind you of another key factor that significantly impacts the sum of the insurance claims – this is conducting of your case by an experienced lawyer.
Legal advice on insurance payments at the Patkin & Partners Law Office is free of charge. Contact by phone: 054-762-9217