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Personal Injury Settlement Calculator — estimate your claim's value
Enter your damages and injury severity and get an instant range for any injury claim — car crash, fall, dog bite, workplace or product injury — adjusted for your state and fault.
Enter your medical bills, future medical costs, lost wages and property damage, choose the multiplier or per-diem method for pain and suffering, then set your state and your share of fault. The tool returns an estimated settlement range adjusted for your state's comparative-negligence rule.
What this estimates. Every injury settlement is built from special (economic) damages — medical bills, lost income, out-of-pocket costs — plus general (non-economic) damages for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment. The tool estimates the first directly and the second with a multiplier or per-diem, the same logic adjusters use.
Use it as an injury claim calculator for any bodily injury to answer the first question everyone asks: how much is my case worth?
See also: If the injury happened at work, a different system applies before this one does — start with the workers comp settlement calculator, which pays a benefit rate rather than a settlement.
Real data
Average personal injury settlement amount
Payouts vary so much by case type that a single average is misleading. In a Martindale-Nolo reader survey the average personal-injury payout was about $52,900, and readers who used a lawyer averaged far more than those who did not. Court data puts the median tort award lower.
Sources: Martindale-Nolo reader survey (self-reported) and U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Your case can differ widely — use the calculator for a personalized range.
The method
How personal injury settlements are calculated
Add economic damages, estimate pain & suffering with a multiplier or per-diem, then reduce for any shared fault.
Medical expenses
Past and future treatment — the backbone of any injury claim.
Lost income
Time missed now plus reduced future earning capacity.
Pain & suffering
Multiplier rises with severity: ~1.5–2 minor, 3 moderate, 4.5–5 permanent.
Shared fault
Your percentage of blame reduces the award under your state's rule.
Permanence
Lasting impairment or scarring raises the multiplier and the total.
Adjust for your state
How your state's comparative-negligence rule applies
Your share of fault and your state's rule directly change the result. Pure comparative states reduce the award by your %; modified states bar recovery at 50–51%; contributory states can bar it entirely.
Recover even if mostly at fault; your award is cut by your %. e.g. California, Washington, New York.
No recovery if you are 50% or more at fault. e.g. Colorado, Georgia, Tennessee.
No recovery if you are 51% or more at fault. e.g. Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania.
Any fault at all can bar recovery. Only AL, MD, NC, VA & DC.
Where the ten largest states sit: California, New York and Washington apply pure comparative fault, so a share of blame cuts the total but never bars it. Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida — Florida since its 2023 reform — bar recovery at 51% or more. Georgia bars it at 50%. North Carolina and Virginia are contributory-negligence states where any share of fault at all can end the claim. Set your state in the calculator and it applies the right one for you.
Questions
Personal injury settlement FAQ
Add your economic damages, estimate pain and suffering with a multiplier or per-diem, then reduce for any shared fault. The calculator does all three.
Not always. Small claims with clear liability and modest bills are routinely settled directly. Where the injury is serious or permanent, where fault is disputed, or where an insurer challenges your treatment, people more often use representation; attorneys in this field typically work on contingency, so the trade-off is a percentage of the outcome. We take no cases, refer no cases, and gain nothing either way.
It is a realistic starting range, only as good as your inputs — be honest about future medical costs and recovery time.
Adjusters use the same building blocks but argue for a lower multiplier and a higher share of your fault. Your range is your negotiating floor.
Permanent impairment, surgery, future medical needs, clear liability, lost earning capacity and strong documentation.
Run it again with your fault share moved
Your share of fault is the one input an insurer is financially motivated to argue up. Run the calculator at 0%, then again at the figure the adjuster is proposing: the gap between those two results is the size of that argument in dollars. No contact details are asked for at any point.
Open the calculator