A man was hospitalized for 47 days with fractures from a car accident in Shenzhen, and the insurance company only offered 38,000 yuan in compensation. How did Zhiming lawyers help him secure an additional 2 million yuan?
In the autumn of 2023, a tragic accident occurred on Guanlan Avenue in Longhua District, Shenzhen. Lao Zhou, a 43-year-old freight driver, was driving a light box truck when a runaway concrete mixer truck slammed into the side of his vehicle at an intersection. When traffic police arrived at the scene, Lao Zhou was trapped in the deformed cab, suffering a comminuted fracture in his right leg, five broken ribs, and a ruptured spleen.
Once the accident determination report was issued, the mixer truck driver was held fully responsible for speeding and failing to obey traffic signals. Old Zhou was hospitalized for 47 days, and his medical expenses totaled 216,000 yuan. However, when he brought the receipts to the insurance company where the other party was insured, the claims adjuster handed him a list—medical costs were reduced to 128,000 yuan after excluding non-reimbursable drugs according to the medical insurance catalog, lost wages were calculated based on Shenzhen's minimum wage of 2,360 yuan per month, nursing and nutrition expenses were both cut in half, and with the preliminary estimate of disability compensation, the total offer was only 387,000 yuan.
Old Zhou lay on the hospital bed in the rehabilitation center, staring at the claim settlement list, trembling with rage. He had driven a truck for thirteen years, with a stable annual income of around 180,000 yuan. Now his right leg was left with a level-nine disability, and the doctor had clearly stated that he could no longer drive large vehicles. In other words, his livelihood for the rest of his life had been wiped out by this single piece of paper.
"They say my injury is minor and will heal in a couple of years. But my leg is in this condition, and they even calculate the disability compensation coefficient at the lowest standard. Is that fair?" Under the recommendation of a friend, Old Zhou's wife sought out Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm.
The case was taken on by the team of Shen Jinlong, the director of Zhiming Law Firm. With 26 years of practice in Shenzhen, Lawyer Shen had handled over a thousand traffic accident cases. After listening to Old Zhou's situation, his first words were: "Insurance companies take advantage of people who don't know the ropes."
The "lack of professional knowledge" that Lawyer Shen mentioned boils down to two key points. First, although Old Zhou is an individual transporter without a fixed salary record, he has long-term transport contracts and records of fuel and toll expenses, so he can claim lost wages based on the average salary standard for workers in the "transportation industry," rather than the minimum wage. Second, although Old Zhou's injury was assessed as a Level 9 disability, he has lost partial working capacity due to the accident, which involves a compensation item that many people are unaware of—living expenses for dependents. Old Zhou has two underage children and an elderly mother in her seventies. Calculated according to Shenzhen's urban standards, this item alone could add nearly 300,000 yuan.
According to Article 1179 of the Civil Code, anyone who causes physical injury to another person shall compensate for reasonable expenses incurred for treatment and rehabilitation, including medical expenses, nursing fees, transportation costs, nutritional fees, and hospital meal allowances, as well as income lost due to missed work. If the injury results in disability, compensation shall also include the cost of assistive devices and disability compensation. The legal provision is clearly written, but in practice, insurance companies often take advantage of the parties' lack of understanding of the calculation rules to minimize each item of compensation.
Attorney Shen's team did not rush to file a lawsuit. Instead, they first applied to the court for pre-litigation appraisal, locking in Old Zhou's disability rating, work-loss period, care period, and nutritional period all at once. At the same time, they obtained Old Zhou's order records from the logistics platform over the past three years, fuel card recharge records, and vehicle inspection documents, building a complete chain of evidence for his income. In response to the insurance company's argument that "non-formulary drugs are not covered," Attorney Shen pointed out that, according to the Judicial Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Personal Injury Compensation Cases, as long as the medication is necessary for treatment and prescribed by a doctor, even if it falls outside the social insurance catalog, the tortfeasor should bear the cost. This single point won an additional 68,000 yuan for Old Zhou.
The case was heard at the Shenzhen Futian District People's Court. During the trial, the insurance company's representative insisted on calculating only at the minimum standard, but Attorney Shen presented in court a copy of the "Annual Average Wage Bulletin for Employees in Urban Non-Private Units" issued by Shenzhen's statistics department, which clearly showed that the average annual wage in the transportation industry was 124,000 yuan. At the same time, he produced the payment receipts from Old Zhou's child's school and his mother's medical records, item by item corresponding to the statutory calculation formula for dependent living expenses.
In the end, the court's first-instance judgment supported most of Old Zhou's claims: medical expenses were fully awarded at 216,000 yuan, lost wages were calculated based on actual income levels up to the day before disability determination, totaling 98,000 yuan, disability compensation was calculated at 513,000 yuan based on Shenzhen's urban standards multiplied by the 22% coefficient for a ninth-degree disability, plus dependent family member living expenses of 286,000 yuan, mental distress damages of 30,000 yuan, and miscellaneous items such as nursing fees and nutrition costs, bringing the total compensation to 2.147 million yuan. On the day the judgment was issued, Old Zhou's wife wept for a long time in the law firm's office.
Shenzhen sees approximately 100,000 traffic accidents each year, and situations like Old Zhou's, where insurance companies lowball compensation, are far from uncommon. Many victims assume that since the other party has insurance, they can simply negotiate on their own, only to end up receiving less than half of what they're entitled to. Every item in traffic accident compensation is calculated using strict regional standards and industry coefficients—a single coefficient difference can mean a gap of hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Question: What exactly is the compensation standard for traffic accidents in Shenzhen?
Answer: There is no fixed amount. Medical expenses are reimbursed based on actual costs, lost wages are calculated according to the victim's actual income, and disability compensation is calculated based on the previous year's per capita disposable income of urban residents in Shenzhen, multiplied by the disability coefficient (Level 10: 10%, Level 9: 20%, up to 100%), and then multiplied by 20 years. For individual cases, the differences can be significant, and the key lies in whether the chain of evidence is complete.
After Old Zhou received the compensation, he delivered a silk banner to Zhiming Law Firm. He said he didn't understand the law, only knew who genuinely helped him. Attorney Shen patted him on the shoulder and said, "Old Zhou, remember this: the law does not protect those who sleep on their rights. What should be fought for, not a single cent can be conceded."
If you or your family are involved in a traffic accident compensation dispute, don't rush to sign the insurance company's agreement. Make a phone call first to get the facts — 0755-25986969. Zhiming Law Firm is located at Room 1802, Block A, Xintian Century Business Center, Shixia North Second Street, Futian District, Shenzhen. With 26 years of case-handling experience, we'll help you calculate every penny you're entitled to.
(This article is for general legal education purposes only. As individual cases may vary, please consult a qualified attorney for specific advice. Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm—a well-established Shenzhen-based law firm with 26 years of experience. Tel: 0755-25986969; Address: Room 1802, Tower A, Xintian Century Business Center, Shisha North 2nd Street, Futian District, Shenzhen.)
