After a car accident, expenses can add up quickly. This is especially true if there are severe injuries. Even if you believe your injuries are minor, you still want to seek immediate medical care.

Types of Car Accident Damages in California

California courts recognize two main types of damages: economic and non-economic.

Economic Damages

Economic damages, also called special damages, are those that can be measured easily. These damages compensate the car accident victim for easily identifiable losses. Examples of economic or special damages are:

• Medical bills (past and future)
• Lost wages (past and future)
• Repair and replacement of damaged property
• Rental car

Depending on the severity of the injury, it is possible the car accident victim will have continuing medical care and/or may not be able to return to work in their old capacity. If this is the case, they will be entitled to damages to cover the medical bills they’ve incurred to that point with future medical care. If they aren’t able to do the same job as they did before, they may be entitled to past lost wages and future lost earnings.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages, also known as general damages, are more difficult to calculate. While economic damages are based upon hard costs with invoices, bills, etc., non-economic damages are more difficult because they flow from the defendant’s wrongful conduct .

This means that a dollar amount has to be assigned to the physical and mental trauma the victim suffered from the accident. Because every car accident injury involves different people and different variables, there is no set formula to determine these amounts.

Examples of non-economic or general damages include:

• Physical pain and suffering
• Physical disfigurement
• Physical impairment
• Mental anguish
• Loss of companionship (paid to family members in wrongful death cases), and
• Lowered quality of life

Punitive Damages

California also recognizes punitive damages. These are damages that are used to punish the defendant and to prevent wrongful conduct in the future. They are not “compensatory” like those above. Typically, these are not available in car accident cases unless the defendant has behaved extremely recklessly and purposely put people in harm’s way.

California has certain minimum insurance requirements that apply to every driver in the state. Each driver is required to have insurance and register the vehicle with the state.

The minimum amount of insurance required in California is $15,000 for the injury/death of one person and $30,000 for the injury/death of two or more people from a car accident. Additionally, drivers must carry $5,000 for property damage.

This minimum policy is called a 15/30/5 policy. These are the base minimum requirements for insurance to operate a car. However, it is recommended to obtain higher amounts because even small car accidents can be costly.

Yes. A car accident attorney can help with a claim when the other driver was uninsured or underinsured. Your Sacramento car accident attorney will help recover damages outside of the typical insurance policy payout.

While the state requires car insurance companies to offer uninsured and underinsured coverage, they are not part of a standard policy. If the driver doesn’t want them, they will be required to sign a waiver explaining they were offered but not accepted. Because of the minimum car insurance requirements in California , we recommend carrying both of these types of coverage.

Yes. A police report can be critical to maximizing a car accident settlement.
This is because the insurance company will want proof the accident occurred . The police report will also contain important information from witnesses and documentation about injury and property damage.

Even if the accident appears to be minor, sometimes injuries take days or weeks to show up. A police report will help backing up any claims with the insurance company or in court.

Depending on where the car accident occurred will dictate which law enforcement arrives at the scene, but typically it will be the California Highway Patrol, the local police department, or the Sacramento Sheriffs.

The following will be helpful in getting more information about police reports in specific jurisdictions:

• California Highway Patrol
• Sacramento PD
• Sacramento Sheriff
• Elk Grove PD
• Rancho Cordova PD
• Citrus Heights PD
• West Sacramento PD
• Folsom PD
• Roseville PD
• Davis PD
• Woodland PD
• Rocklin PD

The most important thing to note is that you should always make a police report after a car accident. This is because you don’t know when you may need it to support your car accident injury claim