Facial Reconstruction After a Crash: The Costs Insurance Won’t Volunteer to Cover

Personal injury claims, including facial injuries from serious car accidents and high-impact collisions are some of the most difficult claims a person can go through, not just physically, but emotionally. When an airbag deploys at full force, when a face hits a steering wheel or windshield, or when a vehicle is struck from the side and the head hits the door frame or glass, the damage to the face can be severe. The road to recovery often involves multiple surgeries, months of healing, and a process that impacts nearly every part of daily life. What makes these cases even harder is that the insurance company on the other side is not going to walk you through everything they owe you. A good personal injury attorney knows that the full cost of facial reconstruction is one of the areas where injured people are most likely to leave significant compensation on the table simply because they didn’t know to ask for it or because insurance companies have minimized these claims. An Irving, TX car accident lawyer can help individuals with serious facial injuries pursue compensation for reconstructive surgeries, future medical care, lost income, pain and suffering, scarring, disfigurement, and the long-term physical and emotional effects of their injuries.   

What Facial Reconstruction Actually Involves

Facial injuries from high-impact crashes can range from fractures of the nose, jaw, cheekbones, and orbital bones around the eye, to deep cuts requiring surgical repair. 

The treatment process for serious facial trauma typically involves more than one specialist and more than one surgery. Each of those specialists carries their own costs, and the combined picture adds up quickly. An experienced personal injury attorney will make sure that every stage of treatment is accounted for in your settlement.

The Costs Insurance Companies Don’t Bring Up on Their Own

When an insurance adjuster reaches out after a serious crash, the conversation tends to focus on the bills you already have in hand. What adjusters don’t bring up, and what injured people often don’t know to raise, are the future costs that haven’t been billed yet.

Future surgical procedures. Facial reconstruction is rarely a single surgery. If your treatment plan includes additional surgeries, the cost of those future procedures has to be part of any settlement discussion. A settlement that closes out your claim before those surgeries happen leaves you paying for them out of pocket.

Disfigurement as a Non-Economic Damage

Beyond the medical bills, Texas law recognizes disfigurement as its own category of non-economic damage. This is compensation for the permanent change to a person’s appearance caused by the crash, separate from pain and suffering and separate from the cost of treatment. Visible facial scarring, asymmetry, or permanent changes to the structure of the face are losses that carry real value in a personal injury claim, and they deserve to be presented and supported as such.

Insurance companies do not volunteer this category of compensation. They don’t bring it up in settlement conversations, and they count on injured people not knowing it exists. Do not let the at-fault party’s insurer guide the scope of your own claim. A personal injury attorney can make sure every category of damage is identified and pursued.

As personal injury attorneys, we advise clients to avoid finalizing any settlement in a serious facial injury case until the treating physicians can give a clear picture of what future care will look like. That timeline is part of building a claim that reflects what the injury actually cost, not just what has been billed so far.

Kelso Law was founded by Rhiannon Kelso, a Dallas-Fort Worth native with over a decade of experience handling personal injury cases and more than 25 trials in front of Texas juries. If you or someone you love suffered facial injuries in a crash in the Dallas area, reach out to a Dallas personal injury lawyer. The full cost of what happened is likely larger than what the insurance company has put on the table, and we can help you understand the difference.