Wisconsin Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin 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.
Wis. Stat. § 893.54(1m) reads “(1m) Except as provided in sub. (2m), the following actions shall be commenced within 3 years or be barred:” and § 893.54(1m)(b) reads “(b) An action brought to recover damages for death caused by the wrongful act, neglect or default of another.” Wis. Stat. § 893.54(2m) reads “(2m) An action brought to recover damages for death caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another and arising from an accident involving a motor vehicle shall be commenced within 2 years after the cause of action accrues or be barred.” This field holds a single number, so we publish the 2-year period: it is the one that governs motor-vehicle deaths, and telling a claimant 3 years when the real deadline is 2 is the error that costs a claim. If the death did not involve a motor vehicle, you may have the full 3 years. Confirm which period applies with a Wisconsin attorney.
Wis. Stat. § 893.54(2m)·Last reviewed 2026-07-29
Wisconsin bars recovery if plaintiff is 51% or more at fault.
Wis. Stat. § 895.045·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Wis. Stat. § 895.043(6)·Last reviewed 2026-07-30
The personal representative, or the person to whom the recovery belongs, may bring the action. If the deceased leaves a spouse or domestic partner and minor children the deceased was legally charged to support, the court may set aside up to half of the net recovery for the children. Without such children, the recovery belongs to the spouse or domestic partner; if none survives, to the lineal heirs; and if none of those survive, to the brothers and sisters. Wis. Stat. § 895.04(1), (2) reads: “An action for wrongful death may be brought by the personal representative of the deceased person or by the person to whom the amount recovered belongs.” and “If the deceased leaves surviving a spouse or domestic partner under ch. 770 and minor children under 18 years of age with whose support the deceased was legally charged, the court before whom the action is pending, or if no action is pending, any court of record, in recognition of the duty and responsibility of a parent to support minor children, shall determine the amount, if any, to be set aside for the protection of such children after considering the age of such children, the amount involved, the capacity and integrity of the surviving spouse or surviving domestic partner, and any other facts or information it may have or receive, and such amount may be impressed by creation of an appropriate lien in favor of such children or otherwise protected as circumstances may warrant, but such amount shall not be in excess of 50 percent of the net amount received after deduction of costs of collection.” and “If there are no such surviving minor children, the amount recovered shall belong and be paid to the spouse or domestic partner of the deceased; if no spouse or domestic partner survives, to the deceased’s lineal heirs as determined by s. 852.01” and “if no lineal heirs survive, to the deceased’s brothers and sisters.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Wisconsin wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here.
Wis. Stat. § 895.04(1), (2)·Last reviewed 2026-10-16
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.
What partial fault costs you in Wisconsin
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 Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Wisconsin 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.
Wis. Stat. § 893.54·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorWis. Stat. § 893.55(1m)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorWis. Stat. § 893.54(1m) reads “(1m) Except as provided in sub. (2m), the following actions shall be commenced within 3 years or be barred:” and § 893.54(1m)(b) reads “(b) An action brought to recover damages for death caused by the wrongful act, neglect or default of another.” Wis. Stat. § 893.54(2m) reads “(2m) An action brought to recover damages for death caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another and arising from an accident involving a motor vehicle shall be commenced within 2 years after the cause of action accrues or be barred.” This field holds a single number, so we publish the 2-year period: it is the one that governs motor-vehicle deaths, and telling a claimant 3 years when the real deadline is 2 is the error that costs a claim. If the death did not involve a motor vehicle, you may have the full 3 years. Confirm which period applies with a Wisconsin attorney.
Wis. Stat. § 893.54(2m)·Last reviewed 2026-07-29
Open the wrongful death calculatorWis. Stat. § 102.17(4)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorWis. Stat. § 893.54·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorWisconsin 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.
- 24 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, and Wisconsin 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 37 jurisdictions' wrongful death statutes. In 20 the personal representative brings the action, in 7 family members or the personal representative may, and the other 10 name a family member, a trustee or a representative, or name who benefits rather than who sues. Wisconsin's is one of the 7 where family members or the personal representative may.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data, and Wisconsin is one of them at $750,000, 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
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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.