Louisiana Car Accident Settlement Calculator
Estimate a car accident settlement under Louisiana law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Louisiana law does to your claim
Three things in state law open a gap between two identical injuries in two different states: how long you have to file, what happens if you were partly at fault, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Louisiana uses pure comparative fault.
La. Civ. Code art. 2323·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
Louisiana car insurance law: minimums, PIP and uninsured motorist coverage
What Louisiana's provisions say about the insurance behind a car accident claim, in their own words, with the copy read named under each.
Louisiana: Minimum liability coverage
“[…] subject to limits exclusive of interest and costs with respect to each such motor vehicle as follows: (a) Fifteen thousand dollars because of bodily injury to or death of one person in any one accident, and (b) Subject to said limit for one person, thirty thousand dollars because of bodily injury to or death of two or more persons in any one accident, and (c) Twenty-five thousand dollars because of damage to or destruction of property of others in any one accident.”
The provision begins before this quote, and the part before it is not quoted here.
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.
Louisiana: No-fault, personal injury protection and the right to sue
A separate rule, on what some claimants may recover:
“There shall be no recovery for the first one hundred thousand dollars of bodily injury and no recovery for the first one hundred thousand dollars of property damage based on any cause or right of action arising out of a motor vehicle accident, for such injury or damages occasioned by an owner or operator of a motor vehicle involved in such accident who fails to own or maintain compulsory motor vehicle liability security.”
Where it does not apply:
“(3)(a) The limitation of recovery provisions of this Subsection do not apply if the driver of the other vehicle: (i) Is cited for a violation of R.S. 14:98 as a result of the accident and is subsequently convicted of or pleads nolo contendere to such offense. (ii) Intentionally causes the accident. (iii) Flees from the scene of the accident. (iv) At the time of the accident, is in furtherance of the commission of a felony offense under the law. (b) The limitation of recovery provisions of this Subsection do not apply if at the time of the accident, the other vehicle is not being operated and the vehicle is not in violation of the provisions of Chapter 1 of this Title.”
No personal injury protection requirement, and no limit on a suit for pain and suffering, was found in the provisions read for this page (La. R.S. 22:1295, 32:866 and 32:900).
Louisiana: Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
“(i) No automobile liability insurance covering liability arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of any motor vehicle shall be delivered or issued for delivery in this state with respect to any motor vehicle designed for use on public highways and required to be registered in this state or as provided in this Section unless coverage is provided therein or supplemental thereto, in not less than the limits of bodily injury liability provided by the policy, under provisions filed with and approved by the commissioner, for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover nonpunitive damages from owners or operators of uninsured or underinsured motor vehicles because of bodily injury, sickness, or disease, including death resulting therefrom; however, the coverage required under this Section is not applicable when any insured named in the policy either rejects coverage, selects lower limits, or selects economic-only coverage, in the manner provided in Item (ii) of this Subparagraph. In no event shall the policy limits of an uninsured motorist policy be less than the minimum liability limits required under R.S. 32:900, unless economic-only coverage is selected as authorized in this Section.”
“(ii) Such rejection, selection of lower limits, or selection of economic-only coverage shall be made only on a form prescribed by the commissioner. The prescribed form shall be provided by the insurer and signed by the named insured or his legal representative.”
Louisiana: Medical payments coverage
No medical payments coverage requirement was found in the provisions read for this page (La. R.S. 22:1295, 32:866 and 32:900).
What partial fault costs you in Louisiana
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under Louisiana law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every Louisiana deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Louisiana periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the personal injury calculatorLa. Rev. Stat. 9:5628 requires filing within 1 year of the act or of discovery, and never more than 3 years from the act. We publish the 1-year period. Qualified-provider claims also go to a medical review panel first.
La. Rev. Stat. 9:5628·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the medical malpractice calculatorThe 1 year shown is the earliest a Louisiana wrongful-death deadline can fall, not the deadline itself, because the year runs from the death and a death can come after the injury. La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B) reads: "The right of action granted by this Article prescribes one year from the death of the deceased or two years from the day that injury or damage is sustained, whichever is longer." That wording took effect August 1, 2025 under Acts 2025, No. 176, and the Legislature's digest of the Act says: "Prior law provided a prescriptive period of one year for wrongful death actions." For a death caused by medical malpractice, art. 2315.2(F) reads: "The right of action granted by this Article for medical malpractice actions prescribes one year from the death of the deceased." Whether the two-year period reaches a death before August 1, 2025 is not established here. A date one year after the injury is the earliest your deadline can be, not the date it falls. Ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B)·Last reviewed 2026-09-24
Open the wrongful death calculatorLa. Rev. Stat. § 23:1209·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorLa. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the slip and fall calculatorLa. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code arts. 2315, 2317.1, 2321; art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the dog bite calculatorLouisiana against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 11 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply the pure comparative negligence rule, and Louisiana is one of them.
- Its 2 years to file is the same as the most common deadline in the country, which 25 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 6 years.
- 7 of the 51 jurisdictions limit non-economic damages (pain and suffering) in our data and Louisiana is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology