Colorado Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under Colorado 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 Colorado law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a wrongful death claim: how long you have to file, who the state's wrongful death statute says brings the action, the state's comparative fault rule, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
Which deadline governs a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Colorado is not established here. The two years published is Colorado's general wrongful-death period under C.R.S. §§ 13-80-102(1)(d) and 13-80-108(2). C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), which gives a Colorado car-accident claim three years, covers "All tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle" and does not mention a death. We have not established whether it reaches a wrongful-death action, because neither of the two sources behind the three-year period addresses one. Treat the two years as the shorter of two readings rather than as the answer, and speak to a licensed Colorado attorney well inside it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 13-80-102(1)(d), 13-80-108(2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Colorado bars recovery if plaintiff is 50% or more at fault.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-111·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Colo. Rev. Stat. 13-64-302(1)(c); HB 24-1472·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Colorado limits the total damages recoverable in a medical malpractice case under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-64-302, and we hold the figure that governs care given this year. It is not on this page for three reasons, any one of which would be enough. The ceiling is written as the greater of a fixed amount or a percentage of another limit, so it is a formula rather than a number. That other limit steps up on a schedule through 2029 and then tracks inflation, so the figure that governs depends on when the care happened rather than on when you read this. And a court may award more than the ceiling for additional economic damages on a showing the statute describes. The current amount, the schedule and the citation are on the source record. Ask a Colorado attorney which ceiling applies to your care.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-102·Last reviewed 2026-07-30
Wrongful death damages are sued for by the parties section 13-21-201 names. In the first year after the death: the spouse; on the spouse's written election, the spouse and the heirs, or the heirs; with no spouse, the heirs or a designated beneficiary; and, in the circumstances the section sets out, siblings or their heirs. In the second year: the spouse, the heirs, or both, a designated beneficiary with the heirs, or, in those circumstances, siblings or their heirs. Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 13-21-203(1)(a), 13-21-201(1)(a), (b)(I) reads: “shall be sued for and recovered by the same parties and in the same manner as provided in section 13-21-201” and “(a) In the first year after such death: (I) By the spouse of the deceased; (II) Upon the written election of the spouse, by the spouse and the heir or heirs of the deceased; (III) Upon the written election of the spouse, by the heir or heirs of the deceased; (IV) If there is no spouse, by the heir or heirs of the deceased or the designated beneficiary, if there is one designated pursuant to article 22 of title 15, with the right to bring an action pursuant to this section, and if there is no designated beneficiary, by the heir or heirs of the deceased; or (V) If, at the time of death, there is no spouse, no heir or heirs, and no designated beneficiary, or, if the deceased was an unmarried minor without descendants or an unmarried adult without descendants, and there is no mother and no father of the deceased, then by the sibling or siblings of the deceased or the heir or heirs of the sibling or siblings of the deceased.” and “(b) (I) In the second year after such death: (A) By the spouse of the deceased; (B) By the heir or heirs of the deceased; (C) By the spouse and the heir or heirs of the deceased; (D) By the designated beneficiary of the deceased, if there is one designated pursuant to article 22 of title 15, with the right to bring an action pursuant to this section, and the heir or heirs of the deceased; or (E) By the sibling or siblings of the deceased or the heir or heirs of the sibling or siblings of the deceased, but only if, at the time of death, the deceased had no surviving spouse, no heir or heirs, and no designated beneficiary, or, if the deceased was an unmarried minor without descendants or an unmarried adult without descendants, and had no mother and no father.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Colorado wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here. Read from the Colorado Revised Statutes 2024, the latest compilation this session could open; a change made in 2025 or later would not show in it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 13-21-203(1)(a), 13-21-201(1)(a), (b)(I)·Last reviewed 2026-10-17
Held, not published means our research established a limit for this state and we are not putting a figure on it here. The note under each one says which statute it is and what stops us. The amount and its source are on our record.
What partial fault costs you in Colorado
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 Colorado 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 Colorado deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Colorado 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.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102.5·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorWhich deadline governs a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Colorado is not established here. The two years published is Colorado's general wrongful-death period under C.R.S. §§ 13-80-102(1)(d) and 13-80-108(2). C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), which gives a Colorado car-accident claim three years, covers "All tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle" and does not mention a death. We have not established whether it reaches a wrongful-death action, because neither of the two sources behind the three-year period addresses one. Treat the two years as the shorter of two readings rather than as the answer, and speak to a licensed Colorado attorney well inside it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 13-80-102(1)(d), 13-80-108(2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 8-43-103(2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorColorado's filing deadline for a motor-vehicle injury claim is three years, under C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), not the two-year general personal-injury period in C.R.S. § 13-80-102(1)(a). The three-year provision covers "All tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle", and in City and County of Denver v. Gonzales the Colorado Supreme Court applied it in place of the general two-year period. The same paragraph makes an exception: it does "not apply to any action for strict liability, absolute liability, or failure to instruct or warn governed by the provisions of section 13-80-102 (1)(b) or section 13-80-106". A claim of that kind runs on a different period, which this page does not state because we have not read those two provisions. If any part of your claim is of that kind, speak to a licensed Colorado attorney before relying on three years.
Riding a bicycle? This provision can reach a cyclist's claim in Colorado only where a car or other motor vehicle was involved in the crash, and a crash that involved no motor vehicle runs on Colorado's general personal-injury period instead. The bicycle accident calculator shows the period a cyclist's claim in Colorado is given, and why.
C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n)(I)·Last reviewed 2026-09-23
Open the motor vehicle claims calculatorColorado 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.
- 10 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 50% bar, and Colorado is one of them.
- Its 2 years to file is the same as the most common deadline in the country, which 32 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 3 years.
- We have read the official text of 40 jurisdictions' wrongful death statutes. In 21 the personal representative brings the action, in 7 family members or the personal representative may, and the other 12 name a family member, a trustee or a representative, or name who benefits rather than who sues. Colorado's is one of the other 12.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data, and Colorado is one of them at $530,000, so a large non-economic award can be reduced to it.
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
Colorado calculators
Colorado Wrongful Death questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.