Accident settlement calculators

Upcoming: motorcycle, bus, bicycle, pedestrian and hit-and-run calculators.

An accident settlement starts with your economic damages — the hard, documentable costs of the crash. That means emergency care, hospital and follow-up bills, physical therapy, prescriptions, lost wages while you couldn't work, and out-of-pocket expenses like rental cars or mileage to appointments. These numbers come straight off your bills and pay stubs, so they form the verifiable floor of any claim.

On top of that the calculator estimates your non-economic damages — pain and suffering — using one of two recognized methods. The multiplier method takes your economic damages and multiplies them by a factor of roughly 1.5 to 5, with the higher end reserved for severe, permanent or disfiguring injuries. The per-diem method instead assigns a daily dollar value for every day you spend recovering. Each accident type leans on different data, which is why a truck case and a fender-bender produce very different ranges from the same inputs.

The last step is the part most people forget: fault. Because crashes usually involve more than one driver, your state's comparative-negligence rule reduces your payout by your share of the blame. In a pure comparative state you can recover even if you were 90% at fault; in a modified comparative state you recover only if you were under 50–51%; and in a handful of contributory-negligence states, being even 1% at fault can bar recovery entirely. The calculator applies your state's rule automatically so the range reflects where you actually live.

Two people in nearly identical collisions can walk away with very different settlements. These are the factors that move the number:

A few common mistakes quietly shrink crash settlements. Gaps in treatment let the insurer argue you weren't really hurt. Posting about the accident or your activity level on social media hands the adjuster ammunition. Accepting the first offer — almost always a lowball — leaves money on the table. And settling before you reach maximum medical improvement means future surgery or therapy comes out of your own pocket, because a signed release closes the claim for good.

Before you use the calculator, gather the numbers it relies on: total medical bills to date, any documented future care, your gross lost income, and an honest read on your share of fault. The closer those inputs are to reality, the more useful the range — but remember every figure here is illustrative, not a promise of what any insurer will pay.