Mix this up with economic damages, and a claim can be valued far too low. That usually shows up when an insurer pays attention to bills, wage loss, and car repairs, but gives too little weight to the human cost of the injury.

Economic damages are the financial losses you can usually point to on paper: medical bills, lost income, future treatment costs, and out-of-pocket expenses. Non-economic damages are different. They cover harm that is real but not neatly priced, such as pain, emotional distress, inconvenience, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of normal life after a crash.

That difference matters in Maryland accident cases, whether the injury came from a deer collision on the Eastern Shore or a wreck tied to poor road markings in Baltimore County. A person may have modest medical bills but serious daily pain, sleep problems, or lasting limits at work and home. Those losses fall under non-economic damages, not economic ones.

Maryland is an at-fault auto insurance state, so the other driver's insurer may owe both kinds of damages if their insured caused the crash. But Maryland also follows strict contributory negligence rules: if you are even 1% at fault, you can recover nothing. Personal injury claims generally must be filed within 3 years. And while the prompt local context notes no caps on auto accident damages, valuation still turns heavily on how clearly non-economic harm is documented.