Most car accident claims settle without a lawsuit. What they settle for depends on three things you can largely document yourself: your economic damages, your injury severity, and fault.
Insurers start from your economic damages, meaning medical bills and lost wages, then apply a multiplier for pain and suffering (1.5× for minor soft-tissue injuries up to 5×+ for severe, permanent ones). Property damage is added on top. Your share of fault comes off as a percentage. That is the whole skeleton of the negotiation, and it is exactly the math our calculator prints line by line.
Most states reduce your recovery by your percentage of fault, and about half of them cut you off entirely at 50% or 51%. A handful of contributory-negligence states (Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, DC) bar recovery at even 1% of fault. And no-fault states like New York, Michigan, Florida, and New Jersey add a threshold you must cross before pain-and-suffering claims exist at all. Where your crash happened matters as much as how badly you were hurt. Our state pages cite each rule to its statute.
The at-fault driver's liability policy is the obvious payer, and its limits are the practical ceiling on most claims. That is why minimum-limits states produce so many underpaid serious injuries. Three other layers can sit on top. Your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage steps in when their policy is too small or the driver fled. MedPay or PIP covers immediate treatment. Umbrella policies apply where they exist. In any claim bigger than the other driver's limits, finding coverage matters as much as proving damages.
Get examined even if you feel fine. Gaps in treatment are the adjuster's favorite argument. Document everything: photos, the police report, every bill and missed shift. Decline the other insurer's recorded statement, politely. Estimate your range before you hear their first number, because a first offer is an anchor and not an assessment. For anything beyond a clearly minor claim, talk to an attorney before you sign a release. Releases are permanent.
Run the framework instead of guessing: (medical bills + lost wages) × a 1.5–5× severity multiplier + property damage, minus your fault share under your state's rule. A moderate-injury claim with $12,500 in bills and $4,000 in lost wages supports roughly $33,000 to $49,500 before any fault adjustment. The calculator prints that arithmetic for your own numbers.
Almost never before treatment is complete. An early offer prices a claim whose size nobody knows yet, and those offers typically imply a multiplier near 1×, below any published band. Compute your range, grade their offer against it in offer-check mode, and negotiate in writing.
It's arithmetic, not loyalty: for small clear-liability claims, self-negotiating with the computed range often nets more than paying a third in fees. For real injuries, disputed fault, or stuck negotiations, representation typically recovers several times its cost. Run the take-home calculator both ways and let the numbers decide.