What Is My Case Worth?

The two halves of any injury claim

Every injury claim is built from economic damages — the losses with receipts — and non-economic damages, the ones without. Economic damages are medical treatment to date, the care you will still need, wages you have lost, and earning capacity if you cannot go back to the work you did. Non-economic damages are pain, suffering, emotional distress, permanent scarring and the things you can no longer do.

For serious injuries the second half is frequently the larger one. It is also the half insurers argue hardest about, because there is no invoice to point at.

How non-economic damages are usually calculated

Two rough methods are used in practice. The multiplier method takes your economic damages and multiplies them by a figure that reflects severity — a low multiple for a soft-tissue injury that resolved, a much higher one for permanent disability. The per diem method assigns a daily value to what you are going through and multiplies it by the days of recovery.

Neither is a rule. They are negotiating shorthand, they are applied inconsistently, and neither survives contact with a case where liability is disputed. Treat any calculator that produces a number this way, including ours, as a sense of scale rather than a valuation.

The five things that actually move the number

Severity and permanence. Whether you recovered fully, and how long it took, does more to the value of a claim than anything else.

Treatment and the record of it. Gaps in treatment are the most common argument against a claim, and a consistent medical record is the single best thing a claimant can bring to the table.

Disputed fault. In most states your recovery is reduced by your share of the blame. The percentage an adjuster assigns you early is an opening position, not a finding.

Future costs. Care you will need next year and the year after, and earning capacity if you cannot return to your job. This is where claims are most often undervalued, because it needs expert evidence rather than a stack of bills.

Policy limits. Very often the real ceiling. A catastrophic injury caused by a driver with minimum coverage runs out of insurance long before it runs out of loss — which is when your own underinsured motorist cover, an employer’s commercial policy or a third party becomes the whole question.

What reduces what you actually receive

The figure agreed is not the figure that reaches you. Out of it come the contingency fee, the case costs the firm advanced — filing fees, expert reports, medical records — and any medical liens, where a health insurer or provider has a right to be reimbursed from the settlement.

Liens are the part people are least prepared for and they are frequently negotiable. Ask your firm early what liens are expected and who negotiates them. The net payout calculator walks through the arithmetic.

Why an early offer is usually low

A first offer arriving within days or weeks is a sign that the adjuster has worked out the claim is worth more than they are offering, and that resolving it before you know your long-term position is good value for them. It is not an insult and it is not final — nothing is binding until you sign a release.

The corollary is that you should be cautious about settling before your doctors know what your recovery looks like. Once a release is signed, treatment that turns out to be necessary afterwards is your own cost.