No one ever expects to be in a car accident, yet here you are. You’ve seen cars crash into one another before and assumed it would never happen to you. Unfortunately, someone with a low brain cell count decided to turn into you and hit your car. It was completely their fault – but that doesn’t stop this from being a costly situation.
If you’re not careful, a car crash can temporarily put you in debt due to all the bills and expenses that rack up. Car accidents also have a funny way of being costly for years after the incident. Why are accients like these so expensive? After looking at the main causes of car accident expenses below, you start to understand.
Insurance Claims & Boosted Premiums
You’re typically advised to contact your car insurance provider after an auto accident. They should exist to help you in this situation and prevent you from spending all of your money. Sure, you have to pay an excess (which can be anything from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars), but insurance covers the rest of your repairs…right?
Wrong. Insurance providers will do everything to avoid paying out, which normally means they blame you for the accident or make up some reason to suggest your coverage won’t be enough for this claim. They’re exceptionally sneaky, so you’re left fending for yourself.
What if you’re lucky enough for a kind insurance company to pay for all the auto repairs? Well, they boost your premium for the next few years. Making a claim puts a black mark on your insurance and will mean you pay more for car insurance until that mark goes away. It’s the terrible nature of insurance: don’t make a claim and pay for it yourself, make a claim and pay more for years to come.
The only reasonable way around this is to hire a car accident lawyer instead of making an insurance claim. They’ll cost money, but normally only if you win your legal battle; they also help you claim more money from the accident. Handling things and seeking compensation via a lawyer also won’t impact your insurance premiums in the future.
Medical Bills
Unbelievably, it can cost up to $7500 to fix a broken leg and around $30,000 for a three-day hospital stay. Both statistics seem completely unreasonable, but it’s what happens when you don’t have the right medical coverage. It’s also highly likely that you’ll be in one of those situations following a car accident.
The nature of these accidents means you’re colliding with other vehicles or objects, sometimes at great speeds. The force that goes through your body in an event like this is shocking. To give you some idea about the severity of the situation, the most common car accident injuries include:
- Traumatic Brain Injuries
- Skull fractures
- Herniated discs
- Spinal fractures
- Other bone fractures
- Organ damage
- Joint & soft tissue damage
Almost every one of these injuries will require some semblance of medical attention. Many of them require surgery, which means multiple overnight stays in the hospital. Even some of the less serious injuries – like joint damage – may not require surgery, but could cost loads to rehabilitate.
The sad thing here is that you can’t really do much other than buy medical insurance to cover some of the expenses. It’ll still cost money – again, it could be worth seeking legal representation if the accident wasn’t your fault.
Vehicle Repairs or Replacements
This links in with the car insurance costs because you’ll only contact your insurance provider to deal with vehicle repairs. That being said, it’s still one of the highest costs – when we spoke about insurance, we were talking more about the raised premiums and the long-term cost of filing a claim.
Repairing your vehicle can genuinely cost thousands of dollars. If it gets too bad, you have to replace your car with a new one.
Suddenly, one little accident will now set you back a fortune. This obviously depends on what type of car you buy to replace your broken one, but NPR reports the following:
- The average new car costs $50,000
- The average used car costs $25,000
Either way you’re spending a lot of money replacing your vehicle. That’s why it’s always best to work out the costs of repairing your car versus replacing it. If the car is a complete write-off and the repairs are too extensive, you’ll have to buy a new one.
Who knew car accidents were so expensive? To be honest, most people only think about vehicle repairs or replacement costs, but you can see just how costly medical bills and insurance claims will be as well.