What's my car accident case worth?
A realistic settlement calculator, built by an Orange County injury attorney who'd rather give you an honest number than a flashy one. Five questions. No email required.
Alexander's take: be honest here. The insurance company will find out anyway, and fudging it now just gets you a fantasy number.
Car accident settlement questions, answered
What is my car accident case worth?
Mostly, it comes down to three things: how much medical treatment you needed, whether you were at fault, and how much insurance the other driver carries. Your medical bills are the anchor. Pain and suffering gets built on top of them. The calculator above gives you a realistic starting range in about thirty seconds.
How are car accident settlements calculated?
Insurance adjusters usually start with your medical bills and multiply them to account for pain and suffering. For most cases without surgery, that's realistically about 1.5 to 2 times the medical bills. Surgery pushes it to around 3 times. Proven lost wages get added, and then the total is reduced by whatever share of the crash was your fault. The online calculators promising five times your bills are selling a fantasy. That's for outliers, not your fender-bender.
What's the average car accident settlement in California?
Honestly? The 'average' is a useless number. It lumps a sore neck in with a catastrophic brain injury and spits out a figure that fits neither. Anyone quoting you an average without knowing your bills, your fault, and the insurance limits is guessing. Your own facts are what matter, so plug them in above.
Does partial fault reduce my settlement in California?
Yes. California uses 'pure comparative fault.' If you were 25% at fault, your recovery drops by 25%. The good news: even if you were mostly at fault, you can still recover something. Be honest with yourself about this one. The insurance company will dig it up anyway.
Are car accident cases worth more in Orange County?
Not automatically. The same California law applies statewide. What changes is local stuff: medical costs and wages tend to run higher in Orange County, which raises the bills that settlements are built on, and Orange County juries are known as fairly conservative. A local attorney knows how cases actually play out in the courthouses in Santa Ana.
I got hit in Orange County and it wasn't my fault. What's it worth?
If you truly weren't at fault, nothing comes off the top for comparative fault, so your case is worth the full value of your treatment plus pain and suffering, up to the other driver's insurance. California's minimum policy is only $30,000, which is often the real ceiling unless you have your own uninsured/underinsured coverage. Run your numbers above, then send them to Mr. Eisner.
How much of a $25k settlement will I actually keep?
It depends on three slices: attorney fees (usually a percentage agreed in advance), case costs, and any medical liens or health insurance repayment. A good attorney negotiates those liens down, which is often where clients pick up real money. Mr. Eisner will walk you through exactly what you'd net before you sign anything.
What counts as pain and suffering?
Everything the bills don't capture: the pain itself, lost sleep, the softball season you missed, the anxiety every time you merge onto the 5. It's real, it's compensable, and it's what the multiplier is trying (clumsily) to measure.