Virginia Car Accident Settlement Calculator
Estimate a car accident settlement under Virginia 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 Virginia 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.
Virginia applies contributory negligence. Any plaintiff fault bars recovery.
Virginia common law; see Virginia Model Jury Instructions - Civil, contributory-negligence instructions·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.
Virginia car insurance law: minimums, PIP and uninsured motorist coverage
What Virginia's provisions say about the insurance behind a car accident claim, in their own words, with the copy read named under each.
Virginia: Minimum liability coverage
“B. For all policies effective on or after January 1, 2025, every motor vehicle owner's policy shall: […]”
The provision continues past the end of this quote, and the rest is not quoted here.
“3. Insure the insured or other person against loss from any liability imposed by law for damages, including damages for care and loss of services, because of bodily injury to or death of any person, and injury to or destruction of property caused by an accident and arising out of the ownership, use, or operation of such motor vehicle or vehicles within the Commonwealth, any other state in the United States, or Canada, subject to a limit exclusive of interest and costs, with respect to each motor vehicle, of $50,000 because of bodily injury to or death of one person in any one accident and, subject to the limit for one person, to a limit of $100,000 because of bodily injury to or death of two or more persons in any one accident, and to a limit of $25,000 because of injury to or destruction of property of others in any one accident.”
At registration:
“Every person applying for registration of a motor vehicle shall, under the penalties set forth in § 46.2-707, execute and furnish to the Commissioner his certificate that the motor vehicle is an insured motor vehicle as defined in § 46.2-705, or that the Commissioner has issued to its owner, in accordance with § 46.2-368, a certificate of self-insurance […]”
The provision continues past the end of this quote, and the rest 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.
Virginia: No-fault, personal injury protection and the right to sue
No personal injury protection requirement, and no limit on a suit for pain and suffering, was found in the provisions read for this page (Va. Code §§ 38.2-2201, 38.2-2206 and 46.2-472).
Virginia: Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
“Except as provided in subsection J, no policy or contract of bodily injury or property damage liability insurance relating to the ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle shall be issued or delivered in this Commonwealth to the owner of such vehicle or shall be issued or delivered by any insurer licensed in this Commonwealth upon any motor vehicle principally garaged or used in this Commonwealth unless it contains an endorsement or provisions undertaking to pay the insured all sums that he is legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle, within limits not less than the requirements of § 46.2-472. Those limits shall equal but not exceed the limits of the liability insurance provided by the policy, unless any one named insured rejects the additional uninsured motorist insurance coverage by notifying the insurer as provided in subsection B of § 38.2-2202.”
“The endorsement or provisions shall also provide underinsured motorist insurance coverage with limits that shall be equal to the uninsured motorist insurance coverage limits […]”
The provision continues past the end of this quote, and the rest is not quoted here.
How underinsured coverage pays:
“The endorsement shall provide that underinsured motorist coverage shall be paid without any credit for the bodily injury and property damage coverage available for payment, unless any one named insured signs an election to reduce any underinsured motorist coverage payments by the bodily injury liability or property damage liability coverage available for payment by notifying the insurer as provided in subsection C of § 38.2-2202.”
Virginia: Medical payments coverage
“Upon request of an insured, each insurer licensed in this Commonwealth issuing or delivering any policy or contract of bodily injury or property damage liability insurance covering liability arising from the ownership, maintenance or use of any motor vehicle shall provide on payment of the premium, as a minimum coverage (i) to persons occupying the insured motor vehicle; and (ii) to the named insured and, while resident of the named insured's household, the spouse and relatives of the named insured while in or upon, entering or alighting from or through being struck by a motor vehicle while not occupying a motor vehicle, the following health care and disability benefits for each accident: 1. All reasonable and necessary expenses for medical, chiropractic, hospital, dental, surgical, prosthetic and rehabilitation services, services provided by an emergency medical services vehicle as defined in § 32.1-111.1, and funeral expenses, resulting from the accident and incurred within three years after the date of the accident, up to $2,000 per person; […]”
The provision continues past the end of this quote, and the rest is not quoted here.
What partial fault costs you in Virginia
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 Virginia 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 Virginia deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Virginia 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.
Va. Code § 8.01-243(A)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorVa. Code § 8.01-243(A), (C)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorVa. Code § 8.01-244(B)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorVa. Code § 65.2-601·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorVa. Code § 8.01-243(A)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorVirginia 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.
- 6 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply the contributory negligence rule, and Virginia 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 Virginia 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