What's Included in "Lost Income" Damages?

Motorcycle Accidents and Lost Wages

In 2015, over 88,000 motorcyclists were injured in motorcycle accidents and almost 5,000 died, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. With approximately 8.6 million motorcycles on the road, it is somewhat likely that a “regular” motorcyclist will be involved in a motorcycle accident during their lifetime.

For thousands of motorcycle riders who suffer injuries in accidents, many are forced to take some time off work, or to take vacation or sick days off due to their severe injuries. In cases where deaths occur, surviving relatives are also deprived of the income that the motorcyclist used to bring home.

Calculating Lost Income

There are many factors involved when working out lost income as a result of a motorcycle accident. They include:

Salary

Your lawyer will need to consider your total salary and then divide it with total hours worked to obtain your hourly wage. Then they will multiply that hourly wage with the number of work hours you’ve missed due to your injuries.

Commission

Victims of motorbike accidents who work on the basis of a commission will have a harder time calculating lost income as they have no fixed salary. Your attorney may be able to come up with a figure by going through your sales figures for the past two to three years.

Number of Work Hours Missed

Record all the time you’ve missed work so far due to the accident.

Benefits

Missed work hours doesn’t just dent your income, but also hurts the benefits your employer provides, like contributions to savings accounts, including a 401(k). You also need to take this into account and your lawyer should be able to account for these benefits that you’d receive but for the wreck.

Disability

If you are permanently disabled or can’t do the same work you used to do, your overall income loss potential must be worked out. This could be tricky to calculate as it requires complex formulas to determine the victims age, victims potential future income, and victims financial losses resulting from their inability to perform their job.

What’s Considered as Lost Income?

Lost income not only includes lost wages, but also past income, present income and future income.

Income From Customers or Clients

If you own a business or are self-employed, then you might not be earning wages, but you can still experience loss of income.

Lost Benefits

The cost of your benefits, including lost insurance, are also considered lost income you should get compensated for following a motorcycle accident.

Partial Lost Wages or Income

After your motorcycle accident, perhaps you were able to resume your job but due to your injuries, you were unable to work as long as you did prior to the crash. Or maybe you’ve landed a new, less strenuous job which happens to pay less per hour. If your weekly wage has reduced due to the injuries you suffered in a motorcycle crash, then you may be able to recover the difference between your old wages and current wages.

All of these damages are significant, can cost you considerable sums of cash, and you can get compensation in your motorcycle accident case as long as you’ve got the right attorney representing you, and all the right evidence.