Car Accident Settlement Calculator, from your losses, your share of fault and your state's rules.

It turns on how long treatment lasts, whether fault is disputed, and whether the claim settles or is filed as a lawsuit. A claim cannot be fully valued until treatment ends and the medical costs are known. This site holds no measured data on how long car accident claims take, so it states no typical timeline.

After your treatment is documented. An offer that arrives before anyone knows the full cost of treatment is made on less than the whole claim, and it is written to close the file. Once the records, the bills and the wage loss are in hand, a counter in writing can point to each of them.

That depends on your state, and the recovery is smaller. In the 11 jurisdictions with pure comparative fault, your recovery is reduced by your share of fault, with no cutoff. In the 34 jurisdictions with modified comparative negligence, you are barred once you reach your state's threshold (50% in 10 of them, 51% in 24). In the 6 jurisdictions that still apply contributory negligence (North Carolina and Virginia among them), any share of fault at all can bar recovery, so those cases turn on how fault is assigned.

It is a claim on your own policy's uninsured motorist coverage, for what the at-fault driver would owe you and cannot pay. Whether a policy must include that coverage, includes it unless it was rejected in writing, only has to offer it, or leaves it optional differs by state, and the car insurance panel on this page quotes each state's own rule. Before you talk to an attorney about coverage, gather the declarations page for every policy in the household.

Two main methods. Multiplier: economic damages times a factor, which in this calculator runs from 1.0x to 5.0x depending on severity, treatment length, injury type and fault. Per-diem: a daily value times the days you were in pain. Our calculator uses the multiplier method. Where a state limits a claim for pain and suffering against the at-fault driver unless a threshold is met, the result says so beside the figure and does not reduce it.

Your adjuster, your prior claims, a fee agreement that differs from the calculator's fixed rates, what a health plan will accept on its lien, and ERISA plan language. This calculator deducts a 33.3% contingency fee and case costs of 5.5% of the adjusted gross, and medical liens at 12% of past medical bills. Those are fixed stand-ins, not what a lawyer will charge or what a case will cost: a fee is set by the agreement a claimant signs, and costs and liens depend on the case. Those are questions to put to a lawyer who has read your file.

When the injury needed surgery or a hospital stay, when fault is disputed, when the at-fault driver's insurance may not cover the harm, when an insurer is delaying or denying, or when a deadline is close. This site is not a law firm, gives no legal advice, and cannot say what a lawyer would recover in your case. Its calculator and report are for understanding the claim before that conversation.

In Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and North Dakota, the provisions read for this page limit a claim for pain and suffering against the at-fault driver unless the injury meets a threshold. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, whether it is limited depends on the claimant's own policy election, and in the District of Columbia on the victim's election to take personal injury protection benefits. That is what the provisions read say, not a finding about every state: Arkansas's and Tennessee's codes could not be read, and whether Utah limits that claim was not established here. The car insurance panel quotes each state's own words.

Personal injury protection is coverage on your own policy for some of your own losses from a car accident. Massachusetts's statute, for example, provides it “without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind”. Whether a state requires it, offers it or says nothing about it, and what it pays, is set state by state, and the car insurance panel quotes each state's provisions.

The personal injury protection benefits quoted on this page are for economic losses, such as medical expenses and lost income. North Dakota's statute, for example, defines basic no-fault benefits as “benefits for economic loss resulting from accidental bodily injury.” None of the benefit provisions read for this page lists pain and suffering. Where a state limits a claim for pain and suffering, the limit is on the claim against the at-fault driver.

It differs, and the car insurance panel on this page quotes each state's own minimum with the copy read named. The provisions differ in the amounts, in whether a single combined limit may replace split limits, and in the date a figure applies from. A minimum is a floor on what a policy must carry. It is not a limit on what a claim is worth, and it does not tell you what the at-fault driver carries.

Coverage on your own policy for the protection of people it insures who are legally entitled to recover damages from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle, which is how the statutes quoted on this page put it. Underinsured motorist coverage does the same where the other driver has some insurance and not enough. Each state's rule for both is quoted in the car insurance panel.

Coverage on your own policy for medical costs after an accident. Of the provisions read for this page, Maine, New Hampshire and Wisconsin require it on a policy (Wisconsin's lets the named insured reject it), Nevada requires insurers to offer it, and Virginia requires it on request. The Colorado Division of Insurance's page says it is included in a policy unless rejected, and that state's statutes were not read. Elsewhere, the provisions read either say nothing about it or treat medical costs as part of personal injury protection, and the car insurance panel says which.

It is a choice some policies carry about suing for pain and suffering. Pennsylvania's statute requires insurers to describe it: under the “limited tort” option, “Under this form of insurance, you and other household members covered under this policy may seek recovery for all medical and other out-of-pocket expenses, but not for pain and suffering or other nonmonetary damages unless the injuries suffered fall within the definition of "serious injury" as set forth in the policy or unless one of several other exceptions noted in the policy applies.” And “If you do not sign and return this notice, you will be considered to have chosen the "full tort" coverage as described in paragraph B and you will be charged the "full tort" premium.” New Jersey's Department of Banking and Insurance describes a similar choice between a limited and an unlimited right to sue. Both are quoted in the car insurance panel.