Can I Recover Compensation for Anxiety After a Car Accident?

The experience of going through an accident can be traumatic and may cause more than simply physical injury. Long after your physical injuries have healed or healed as well as possible and led to a disability, the mental and psychological scars of an accident can linger. Suppose you were in a car accident and believe you developed anxiety due to the extreme emotional distress you experienced. In that case, the law can entitle you to damages.

This article will first explore whether you can collect damages for anxiety that results from your car accident and how you need to measure such damages. Then, we will visit emotional distress and consider whether that might lead to additional compensation for your car accident. No matter your situation, however, you should always have an attorney review your case.

Connecting with a local Tampa car accident attorney as soon as possible after you have received medical treatment is recommended. Your attorney will have a network of medical, psychological, and occupational experts to refer you to for assessments to determine the extent of your injuries from the car accident and how they will influence your physical health, mental health, and ability to work in the long term.

The damages available to you following an accident generally cover medical bills and lost earnings associated with your injury, and as we’ll explore, anxiety can affect your ability to work and support your family.

Anxiety Can Affect Life in Many Ways

While most people consider anxiety from time to time to be a normal part of life, as people regularly face problems at work, in their educational endeavors, or when making important decisions, anxiety disorders are more than temporary worry or fear. Rather, a person with an anxiety disorder does not experience a reduction in their level of anxiety, and it can worsen with time.

Anxiety can interfere with daily activities such as schoolwork, personal relationships, and job performance. Anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and phobia-related disorders. The impact of your anxiety from your car accident on your daily life and your work life can entitle you to damages, depending upon your anxiety symptoms and its impact on your activity.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder Can Impact Day-to-Day Life and Also Work

When a person develops generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), their everyday life can change in either the short or long term. Persons with GAD display excessive anxiety and worry for most days for at least six months. Excessive anxiety or worry may focus on many things, from personal health, work, social interactions, or everyday routine life circumstances.

A person with GAD may experience significant difficulty in all areas of their life, including social interactions, school, and work. When GAD begins to impact your ability to return to enjoying your day-to-day life or is affects your ability to work, it can lead to you potentially recovering damages.

Other forms of anxiety include panic disorders and phobia-related disorders, which are intense fears or aversions to specific objects or situations. Panic disorders cause episodes during which people can’t control their bodies or minds.

Panic attacks can include trembling or shaking, shortness of breath, or choking sensations, and sometimes lead to emergency room visits after being mistaken for heart attacks. Panic attacks can limit your ability to work and earn. Phobias may likewise impact your ability to work, and if they developed from your car accident, you can be entitled to damages.

Can I Sue for Emotional Distress After a Car Accident?

The experience of going through a traumatic event can cause emotional distress that, in some situations, is recoverable in the form of damages. While reaching out to a local car accident attorney to assess your accident’s unique facts and circumstances is the only way to receive accurate legal advice, the following is a brief consideration of some situations in which you can recover damages due to emotional distress.

When you are involved in an accident, and a loved one is lost or suffers a severe injury, there are types of damages available that you can collect for the emotional distress of seeing your loved one injured or killed in the accident. Additional damages are available when a person loses their life in an accident through a wrongful death lawsuit. In a wrongful death lawsuit, you can recover damages to cover the lost financial contribution of your loved one to the family, as well as the lost value of their emotional support and contribution to your household.

When Your Accident Impacts Your Personal or Professional Life, Speak with a Car Accident Attorney

Your accident likely is the first that you went through, and you do not have experience with the process of calculating your damages and then taking the steps necessary to collect them from the at-fault parties.

The insurance company is not interested in paying you as much as possible to fully compensate you for all of your damages but just the opposite. The insurance company will deny any claim lacking sufficient evidence and refuse to pay out on aspects of claims that evidence does not effectively support. The stronger your claim, the greater chance you will collect the maximum possible from the insurance company.

While you might have experienced mental duress or have developed anxiety from your accident, you can only receive compensation for this if you know how to demand it from the insurance company and at-fault party. Your car accident attorney knows what your injury is worth and how to negotiate the best possible settlement with the insurance company to ensure you recover compensation for your damages.