What Is the Average Settlement for a Broken Collarbone?

A broken collarbone is an extremely painful experience. The collar bone, or clavicle, connects the shoulders to the rib cage and helps control and stabilize the arm. A broken collarbone needs immediate medical attention. If it heals poorly, it can deform your shoulders and cause lifelong pain or disfigurement.

A common question we get is how much the average settlement is for a broken collarbone. If someone else has broken your collarbone, you can make an insurance claim or sue them for compensation to pay for your care. Our Phoenix personal injury lawyers can help you with this.

There Is No Average Settlement Value for Broken Clavicles

Every personal injury case has dozens of variables that affect the settlement value. It’s not like there is a menu of injuries with particular cost ranges. Here are a few of the variables that can affect your claim.

Treatment Costs

The cost of a hairline fracture on your collarbone will be much less than if it was completely shattered. Some fractures may only need to be braced, and others will need orthopedic surgery. Also, different hospitals will charge different amounts for procedures.

Some other factors that can affect how much it costs to treat your broken bone include:

• Was it broken previously?
• Did you suffer a compound fracture where the bone broke the skin?
• Did a bone fragment damage any other organs?
• Will you need physical therapy?

Your insurance also plays a role. Your policy terms, deductible amount, and their relationship with your care providers can cause the price of treatment to vary wildly. This is just the most obvious piece of your settlement and it’s already easy to see there is no average settlement for a collarbone fracture.

How It Affects Your Life

Your collarbone break may or may not affect your ability to work. If you can’t work, that means your settlement value will need to go up to compensate for your lost wages. Your fracture can also prevent you from doing other things you used to do. This may create non-economic damages like loss of enjoyment of life that you can ask for in your settlement.

How Much do You Make?

Lost wages damages pay you back for the work time you missed. These will vary from accident to accident depending on how much you make at your job and how much time you need to take off to recover.

Are You Eligible for Punitive Damages?

If someone deliberately harmed you or acted far beyond the boundaries of negligence, then you could be eligible for punitive damages. The value of these are determined by a judge and jury, though your lawyer can ask for a particular amount during trial.

Did You Suffer Any Property Damage?

You can claim the value of any property harmed from your accident. A pedestrian hit by a car will probably have little to claim for property damage, but someone driving a car will have a lot. 

Do You Share Responsibility for Your Accident?

If you share any fault for your accident, your settlement amount gets reduced by the amount of fault you share.

What’s the Policy Limit on the Insurance Policy?

Insurance companies pay most compensation claims, but policy limits have a maximum amount they’ll pay out. Going beyond that limit is difficult. You may also have multiple insurance policies involved in your case. These affect the amount you could get from your broken collarbone case.

For a free legal consultation, call 866-499-8989

How do Lawyers Make Estimates About Broken Collarbone Cases?

There’s no way to pin an exact settlement value for a broken collarbone case until all the evidence is found and analyzed and your lawyer has finished negotiations with the insurers. However, your lawyer may be able to give you a rough estimate of your case’s value based on previous similar cases.

This is the surest way to get to an estimate, but that amount could be wildly off in either direction. You could be owed far more if you have high non-economic damages, and you could be owed much less if you shared responsibility for your accident.

Maximizing Your Settlement for a Broken Collarbone Case

Asking what is the average settlement for a broken collarbone is the wrong question. You should ask yourself how you can maximize your settlement. The best way to do that is to work with an experienced personal injury attorney like the team at Zanes Law as soon as possible after your accident.

An insurer may try to approach you with a settlement offer and tell you it’s a fair one or an average one. Don’t believe them. Their goal is to get you to settle for as little as possible, and once you accept you cannot get more money later.

With a little investigation, we can determine how much your case is really worth based on the facts and push to get that amount from the insurers. All personal injury lawyers want to get the most money for their clients, and any lawyer worth your time will not settle for some theoretical average.

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What to do After You’ve Suffered a Collarbone Fracture that Wasn’t Your Fault

Many collarbone fractures happen after car accidents from the force of the seat belt restraint. If you’ve suffered a fracture because of a car accident, first contact the police and seek medical attention. Then contact the car accident lawyers at Zanes Law for a free consultation. We’ll help you determine how much your settlement is worth and help you fight for it.

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