By Danielle Griffin. Last Updated 10th September 2024. Welcome to our guide on how to use an actual and future loss of earnings calculator. When you’re injured in an incident that was caused by somebody else, it is sometimes possible to seek compensation by making personal injury claims. While you’ll start by claiming for your injuries, you may need to think about how you’ve been affected financially too. This might include seeking personal injury loss of earnings compensation. This guide explains the use of a loss of earnings calculator in detail and how, combined with a personal injury compensation calculator, it could give you an idea of how much compensation you could claim.
When it comes to calculating loss of income, the question is, how do you calculate your losses? Do you use wage slips, tax documents or a loss of earnings calculator? We’ll explain what you could include in your claim and how to calculate lost earnings as we progress through this guide.
Accident Claims UK specialises in helping with personal injury claims. Our dedicated advisors review cases for free and offer legal advice at the same time. If they suspect that you have valid grounds to proceed with a claim for injury compensation, one of our solicitors could be introduced to you. Should they decide to represent you, they’ll do so on a No Win No Fee service.
Claims can be made for all sorts of reasons. We can help with road traffic accidents, medical negligence, accidents at work, criminal injury claims and many others besides. Importantly, loss of earnings could be claimed for in any of these scenarios.
To begin your claim right away, please call our advisors on 0800 073 8801. Alternatively, please read on to find out more about proving loss of earnings.
Select A Section
- Personal Injury Loss Of Earnings Calculator
- What Is A Personal Injury Loss Of Earnings Claim?
- Can I Claim For Lost Earnings If I’m Self-Employed?
- No Win No Fee Personal Injury Loss Of Earnings Claims
- Find Out More
Personal Injury Loss Of Earnings Calculator
In this section, we explain how a compensation calculator could work. However, a loss of earnings compensation calculator may not consider everything you could be awarded in a successful personal injury claim. For example, it may not consider lost pension contributions.
When solicitors (or others responsible for doing so) calculate personal injury claims, they may split them into two potential heads of claim. They are general and special damages. General damages are awarded in all successful personal injury claims, whereas special damages are awarded in some.
Special damages is the term used for compensation relating to any financial impact caused by your injuries. Importantly, the idea of personal injury claims is simply to return you to the same situation you were in, financially, before the accident took place.
With regards to your earnings, special damages can include:
- Lost income. This is a calculation to show how much income you have lost as a direct result of your injuries.
- Future lost earnings. Compensation that covers any projected lost income because your injuries will negatively affect your income in the future. This is dependent on your prognosis. That means if a medical report suggests you’ll never be able to work at the same level again, your compensation claim should reflect this.
Other special damages that could be included in your claim are:
- Care costs. You might claim this if you’ve needed a professional carer to support you during recovery. Alternatively, the claim could be based on an hourly rate if a family member cared for you.
- Medical expenses. Sometimes you’ll need to pay prescription fees or fees relating to non-NHS services. Therefore, these could be claimed back.
- Travel costs. If you have to pay for fuel, parking fees or public transport fares to get to hospital appointments linked to your injuries, you could claim these costs back.
- Home modifications. Where you’ve been left with a long-term or permanent disability, changes to your vehicle or home may help you to cope. Therefore, the cost of this could be added to your claim.
You must show evidence of your special damages in the form of payslips, bank statements, receipts, and invoices.
What Are General Damages?
General damages are not linked to any financial harm caused by your injuries. Instead, they cover the physical and mental pain, suffering and loss of amenity caused by the accident. Within that, you could claim for:
- Physical pain, impairment and suffering.
- Any physical disfigurement.
- Emotional or psychological injuries or anguish.
- Reduced quality of life.
- The length of your recovery
The Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) is a publication that can be used to help calculate general damages. The JCG contains different guideline compensation figures for different kinds of injuries.
Guideline Table
In the table below, we have taken some injuries and guideline compensation figures from the JCG. Only the first figure is not from the JCG.
These are just some examples of types of injuries that could lead to you suffering loss of earnings. However, this table must only be used as a guide since all claims are unique.
| Injury | Compensation Range | Important notes |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple serious injuries and special damages | Up to £1,000,000+ | Compensation for suffering more than one serious injury with financial losses such as future loss of earnings. |
| Paralysis - tetraplegia (a) | £396,140 to £493,000 | Upper and lower body paralysis. |
| Paralysis - paraplegia (b) | £267,340 to £346,890 | Lower body paralysis. |
| Brain damage - very severe (a) | £344,150 to £493,000 | Cases include quadriplegic cerebral palsy. |
| Brain damage - moderate (c) (i) | £183,190 to £267,340 | No prospect of employment and the intellect deficit and personality change will be moderate to severe. |
| Hand - loss of both hands (a) | £171,680 to £245,900 | Extensive damage that renders both hands a little more than useless. |
| Hand - less serious (g) | £17,640 to £35,390 | A severe crush injury resulting in significantly impaired function but where future surgery is not needed. |
| Neck - severe (a) (i) | In the region of £181,020 | Incomplete paraplegia. |
| Neck - moderate (b) (i) | £30,500 to £46,970 | Fractures or dislocations which cause severe immediate symptoms and may necessitate spinal fusion. |
To chat to our team about our loss of earnings calculator, please contact us.
What Is A Personal Injury Loss Of Earnings Claim?
There are certain criteria a personal injury lawyer will want to check before taking on a claim. They will want to see that:
- You were owed a duty of care by the defendant; and
- They failed to uphold that duty because they caused an incident to occur.
- During that incident, you were left injured.
If all of the above statements are true in your case, you could be eligible to claim compensation for your injuries. As part of that claim, you could make a loss of earnings claim.
As part of your free claim assessment, an advisor will let you know what you could be compensated for. Why not call today to find out more?
Can I Claim For Lost Earnings If I’m Self-Employed?
The process of claiming as a self-employed worker can be more difficult but not impossible. This might be the case if your earnings vary because your work isn’t the same every week. This will mean that you may find it more difficult to quantify your net daily income.
Something that you may need to do is to inform your accountant if you need to take time off work due to sickness. Also, it is a good idea to keep records about:
- Contracts that you’ve not been able to work on because of your injuries.
- Emails or letters you’ve sent turning down work because you were injured.
- Invoices showing your earnings leading up to your accident and the period after it happened.
Where possible, you should also ask your accountant for your accounts for the 3 years leading up to the accident.
Don’t be put off from claiming if you’re self-employed. You could still be compensated for loss of earnings. Also, we can help with zero-hours workers, contractors, agency workers and temporary staff who need to claim too.
No Win No Fee Personal Injury Loss Of Earnings Claims
We know that some claimants may be concerned about their solicitor’s fees if they aren’t paid compensation. That’s why our advisors of personal injury solicitors provide a No Win No Fee service. It means they’ll only take on claims they believe can be won. Furthermore, it reduces the financial risk of funding a solicitor’s services.
If you decide to proceed, and a solicitor agrees to work on your case, you’ll receive a Conditional Fee Agreement (the formal term for a No Win No Fee agreement). This explains what your solicitor needs to achieve if they are to be paid.
Within the No Win No Fee agreement, there will be a section about success fees. This is a small percentage of any compensation that you’ll pay to your solicitor if your case is won. The fee is capped legally so you can rest assured that you won’t be overcharged.
To learn if your claim is suitable for our solicitor’s No Win No Fee service, why not check with an advisor today?
Contact Us
We hope this guide on personal injury loss of earnings claims has proven useful. If you are now thinking of taking action, you can contact us by:
- Speaking to our advisors on 0800 073 8801.
- Asking an online advisor about your options via live chat.
- Using our claims form to arrange a callback.
- Outlining your case by sending an email to office@accidentclaims.co.uk.
Our claims line operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An advisor will take the details of your claim and explain your options for free. Remember, if your claim is taken on, our solicitors provide a No Win No Fee service.
Find Out More
Now that you’ve read our guide on how to use a loss of earnings calculator, we’ve added some extra resources that might help during a compensation claim.
- Pay And Wages – Details on your rights relating to being paid from Acas.
- NHS: Find Services Near You – If you need to request copies of your medical records, you can use this guide to find the address of NHS services in your area.
- Statutory Sick Pay – Government advice on the current rate of SSP and when you are entitled to it.
- Back Injury Claims – Advice on claiming compensation for a back injury sustained because of somebody else’s negligence.
- Local Authority Claims – Information on the claims process if you’ve been injured because of the council’s negligence.
- Slipped At Work – This guide explains your options if you’ve slipped at work and injured yourself.
Guide by BH
Edited by RV
