TBI Settlement Calculator, from your losses, your share of fault and your state's rules.
Estimate a TBI settlement or a concussion settlement from your costs and recovery, see your state's filing deadline, and read the NIH on brain injury.
How TBI settlements are calculated
This calculator adds up the losses you enter, multiplies the injury losses for pain and suffering, and then applies your share of fault, your state's rules and any policy limit you give it. Here's what each step actually does to your number.
What the formula returns at these inputs
These are outputs of the calculator on this page, not settlements anyone received. Each row feeds the inputs described into the same formula the calculator runs, and the last column is the number it returns. We hold no dataset of closed cases, so we publish the formula working instead of figures we cannot source.
Every row is run in Arizona with no share of fault assigned to the claimant. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. Arizona is used because our state-law data records it as a pure comparative fault jurisdiction with no damages cap of any kind, so nothing here is clipped by a state limit and you can see the formula itself. Pick your own state in the calculator above and the number moves.
What a traumatic brain injury is
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the NIH, describes the injury this way.
“A traumatic brain injury (TBI) refers to a brain injury that is caused by an outside force.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)) “A forceful bump, blow, or jolt to the head or body can cause it, but not all blows or jolts to the head result in a TBI.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026))
A closed head injury needs no wound: “Non-penetrating TBI (also known as closed head injury or blunt TBI) is caused by an external force strong enough to move the brain within the skull.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)) And: “Causes include falls, motor vehicle crashes, sports injuries, blast injury, or being struck by an object.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026))
What it can do: “Some types of TBI can cause temporary or short-term problems with brain function, including problems with how a person thinks, understands, moves, communicates, and acts.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)) At the other end: “More serious TBIs can lead to severe and permanent disability” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)).
A concussion is one kind: “A concussion is a type of mild TBI that may be considered a temporary injury to the brain but could take minutes to several months to heal.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026))
A concussion settlement starts with the medical record
A concussion can look minor at first and still be a serious injury, which is why the record made at the time matters.
MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine's health site, describes it: “A concussion is a type of brain injury” (MedlinePlus, Concussion (Last updated November 24, 2025)). “It involves a short loss of normal brain function.” (MedlinePlus, Concussion (Last updated November 24, 2025)) “It happens when a hit to the head or body causes your head and brain to move rapidly back and forth.” (MedlinePlus, Concussion (Last updated November 24, 2025))
And: “It is important to understand that while concussions may not be life-threatening, they can still be serious.” (MedlinePlus, Concussion (Last updated November 24, 2025))
Symptoms can come later: “Symptoms of a concussion may not start right away; they may start days or weeks after the injury.” (MedlinePlus, Concussion (Last updated November 24, 2025)) NINDS says the same of a secondary injury: “Others can be secondary, meaning they can happen gradually over the course of hours, days, or weeks after injury.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026))
When to get care, in NINDS's words: “Seek immediate medical attention if the person experiences any of the following symptoms, especially within the first 24 hours after an injury to the head” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)), and among the symptoms it lists, “Problems remembering, concentrating, or making decisions” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)).
Getting checked after a blow to the head protects your health first. It also starts the record a claim is built on: the date, what you reported, what the doctor found, and what came next.
How the TBI settlement estimate is built
The calculator prices the claim from your figures and starts on the brain injury type, which you can change.
Enter the medical costs so far and ahead, the pay lost so far and the earnings the injury will cost ahead, then the severity, the length of recovery and your share of fault. The pain-and-suffering factor runs from 1.0x to 5.0x, and the injury type adjusts it.
Where we publish a general cap on non-economic damages for your state, the calculator holds pain and suffering to it; we publish one for four jurisdictions. Where a state has a cap we do not publish, the result says so.
Then it takes out a contingency fee, case costs and medical liens at fixed rates, which are stand-ins and not what your lawyer will charge. The result is a range, not a promise: a claim's value turns on its evidence, its insurance and the law of the state.
What goes into a brain injury claim
A brain injury claim is priced on the harm, and the harm can reach far past the first hospital visit.
Medical costs: emergency care, imaging, specialist visits, rehabilitation and therapy for thinking, speech, balance or movement, medications, and any care at home. NINDS notes that “Brain damage may be temporary or permanent and recovery can take a long time.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026))
Lost pay and earning capacity: the work missed so far, and, where the injury changes what you can do, the earnings it will cost ahead. “Emotional symptoms such as frustration and irritability tend to develop during recovery.” (NINDS, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Last reviewed on March 13, 2026)) Changes in mood, focus or memory can affect work as much as a physical injury does, and a vocational expert can be asked to put a figure on them.
Pain and suffering: the headaches, the fatigue, the changes in mood and memory, and what the injury took from daily life. These are the losses the calculator's factor prices.
Enter what you can show. A figure you cannot document is one an insurer will not pay for.
Documenting a brain injury
The effects of a brain injury can be hard to see, so the record has to show them.
Ask for copies of the emergency record, every imaging report, the notes of each specialist, and the therapy records, with the dates. Keep the discharge instructions and every bill.
Keep a daily record of symptoms in your own words: headaches, dizziness, sleep, memory, mood, and what you could not do that day. Ask the people around you, at home and at work, to write down the changes they have seen.
Keep the records of work missed and of any change in duties or hours. If you could not return to the job you had, keep the letters that say why.
When the clock starts on a brain injury claim
The filing period is your state's general injury period, which the table below shows for every state.
The calculator counts from the date of the injury. A state's law can start the clock later, for example when an injury could not have been discovered sooner, and this page applies none of that, so it never counts a later deadline for you.
How the injury happened can change the period. Medical care runs on a state's malpractice period, which is shorter than the general period in sixteen jurisdictions; a product can run on a state's product period; and a crash can run on a motor-vehicle provision. Where one of those fits, use the calculator on this site for that kind of claim, which shows its period, and plan around the earliest date either shows.
If the injured person died, a wrongful-death claim runs on its own period, which the wrongful-death calculator shows.
Before you settle a brain injury claim
This site is not a law firm, does not refer anyone to a lawyer, and cannot say what a lawyer would recover.
A settlement is final, and the effects of a brain injury can take time to show their full extent. Before you sign a release, ask your doctors what your recovery is expected to look like, and ask a lawyer who handles injury claims in your state whether the offer reflects the costs ahead as well as the bills so far.
Bring your medical records, your symptom record, your records of work missed, the insurer's letters, and the figure this calculator shows.
What actually moves your settlement
Two cases with the same medical bills can settle for very different amounts. These are the variables that pull them apart.
Concussion settlement: filing deadlines by state
Once this deadline passes, your case is gone, regardless of how strong it was. The calculator counts each period from the date of the incident, and a lawyer in your state can confirm when yours began.
Do you need a lawyer?
- Minor injury only, no lasting impact
- Clear liability, soft-tissue injury with a fast recovery
- Insurer's first offer meets your documented damages
- You're comfortable negotiating and have time to document
- Any surgery, hospitalization, or permanent impairment
- Disputed liability, multiple parties, or commercial defendant
- Insurer is delaying, denying, or lowballing
- Policy limits exceeded or underinsured issues
- You're unsure what your case is worth, which is what this tool is for