How to Use Our Personal Injury Settlement Calculator

Here’s what you need to know to use our personal injury settlement calculator for Texas residents. You’ll need to gather information to help your personal injury attorney determine how much compensation you could be entitled to.

What Information Is Relevant for a Personal Injury Calculation?

• Your medical treatment bills: If your personal injury claim is successful, your settlement should cover any medical bills you had to pay — or will have to pay — for treatment needed after your accident. Don’t forget to also include transportation expenses to and from the hospital.
• Your loss of earnings: This can be calculated by multiplying your hourly rate by the total number of hours you are unable to work due to your injury. Divide your annual earnings by 365 to work out your daily rate if you make a salary.
• Your future medical expenses and anticipated loss of earnings: This is getting into speculative territory, but you are entitled to compensation to cover your future expected medical costs and time off work. Suppose your doctor said you need additional treatment and recovery time due to pain and suffering, such as surgery or rehabilitation. In that case, you can recover the cost and future lost income as part of your claim.

Enter your medical expenses, lost earnings, and expected costs into the calculator to determine your claim’s worth. 

 This will feed back your total economic damages. These are the verifiable monetary losses you’ve experienced due to your injury.

But economic damages aren’t all you’re entitled to when you successfully file a personal injury claim.

You may also be entitled to non-economic damages, which is compensation for subjective, non-monetary losses such as pain and suffering, emotional turmoil, and loss of enjoyment.

You will receive this compensation if you have a viable claim and negotiations are successful — resulting in a settlement — or you file a lawsuit and win your case in court. How long it takes to get a settlement check varies from case to case, and delays can slow the process, but we will guide you through the entire process.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Are Personal Injury Calculations Estimated?

Damages are calculated by applying a multiplier to your total economic damages. Insurance adjusters will determine this multiplier on a case-by-case basis, depending on the severity of your injuries and their impact on your life.

In short, the more your injury has affected your quality of life, the more you could be entitled to non-economic damages.

This multiplier typically ranges from one to five. If your injury has healed and left you with no long-term pain or any further complications, you can typically expect a multiplier of 1.5. However, several factors can increase this multiplier, such as:

• Having a traumatic brain injury
• Being left with a physical disfigurement or permanent scarring
• Facing paralysis or a life-long disability as a result of your injury
• Sustaining an injury that has made you dependent on others to perform daily tasks.

When you use our calculator, you’ll be asked whether these scenarios apply to you. If they do, your total settlement amount (your economic damages multiplied by any number between 1.5 and 5, based on your selection) will automatically update.

The process is the same regardless of the type of claim you are calculating for. If you’re looking for a car accident settlement estimate, you’ll first need to add up the cost of your medical treatment bills and lost wages.

However, you’ll notice a question specific to auto accident settlement claims, asking what costs you incurred for property damage. A quote from a repair shop will typically suffice.

What Can I Use the Personal Injury Settlement Calculator For?

You can use our personal injury settlement calculator for all types of personal injury claim calculations in Texas.

Texas Car Accident Settlements

There are many reasons for car accidents. You can seek compensation to gain a fair settlement for a car accident that wasn’t your fault:

• Auto defects
• Rollover accident
• Rear-end collision
• Side-impact or t-bone accident

Texas Truck Accident Settlements

Common types and causes of truck accidents include:

• 18-wheeler accidents
• Falling cargo
• Mechanical failure.

Other Common Cases Resulting in Texas Accident Settlements

You can also start a personal injury claim for these types of accidents in Texas:

• Motorcycle accidents
• Van accidents
• Wrongful death
• Brain injuries
• Slip and fall accidents
• Catastrophic injuries
• Drunk driver accidents
• Dog bite attacks
• Work injuries

What Numbers Do I Use If My Car Is Totaled?

If a driver has crashed into the back of your car and you need a new rear bumper, and your repair shop quotes $500, that’s the figure you should add in that field. Don’t forget you can also recover additional costs, such as labor. If your car is totaled, you can recover the pre-crash market value of your car.

However, there is something you need to look out for when calculating your car accident settlement.

Like many other states, Texas has a total loss statute designed to protect individuals who purchase used vehicles by declaring that the vehicle has previously sustained severe damage.

The Texas Transportation Code allows a vehicle to be declared a “salvage motor vehicle” when the “cost of repairs… exceeds the actual cash value of the motor vehicle immediately before the damage”. This might sound fair, but insurers may declare a car a total loss even if it can be repaired simply because the cost exceeds the value.

Let’s say you have an older car that is otherwise in good condition. Standard market rates put the car at around $5,000, but you’re in a car accident. Most of the damage is cosmetic; once repaired, the car will still be drivable. The only problem? Repairs will cost around $7,000. Because the cost of repairs exceeds the value, your vehicle is deemed a “total loss”.

Sadly, this happens all the time — the insurer takes possession of your car and nets a tidy profit for selling it, and then it can be sold for even more once fully repaired. If this applies to you, you may want to be conservative when using our car accident settlement calculator and input the market value of your car, but you very well may be entitled to more. Our personal injury lawyers in McAllen and San Antonio are skilled negotiators who will seek independent valuations and fight to get you the maximum possible settlement.

Once you’ve calculated your economic damages (property damage, lost wages, and medical bills), answer the final question and tick any options that apply to you to calculate your multiplier. This completes your personal injury calculations, which will determine your non-economic damages and the total estimated car accident settlement you might receive.

How much can you get for pain and suffering?

To calculate compensation for pain and suffering, your total economic damages are multiplied by a variable ranging from one to five. More severe cases, such as those causing catastrophic injuries, have a higher multiplier applied.

For example, if you incur $50,000 in damages and a variable of 1.5 is applied, your compensation would be $75,000.

What is an offer of settlement for a personal injury claim?

This occurs often and is when the defendant admits liability and makes an offer to compensate you for your injuries. At this point, your personal injury lawyer will advise you on whether you should accept the first offer. Just bear in mind that once you accept an offer, it will resolve your claim and you will not be entitled to file further legal action.

What is a reasonable settlement offer?

This is subjective and is dependent on your unique circumstances. Questions you must consider include:

• What is the impact of your financial losses if you can’t work?
• How much additional treatment do you need?
• Is your recovery going well or are your injuries likely to get worse?
• How has your accident impacted you emotionally? Are you sleeping well, or are you awake multiple times a night with debilitating pain and suffering traumatic flashbacks?

There are many factors that help determine what is “reasonable”, and your personal injury attorney can advise you on a fair settlement figure, but the decision is ultimately yours.

While our personal injury calculator can give you a ballpark estimate of how much your claim might be worth, only an experienced personal injury lawyer can advise you on how much you could receive.

Personal injury laws are complex and no two injuries are alike, so you may be entitled to more or less than what any calculator tells you your claim could be worth.

For example, suppose you’re involved in a car accident in McAllen and incur a loss of earnings and medical treatment expenses of $30,000. Your injuries have left you with pain and suffering, a long recovery, scarring, and a permanent loss of sensation in your face. In that case, adding a multiplier of four or five is appropriate. This means you could be entitled to anywhere between $120,000 to $150,000 — a significant difference between the two figures.

You might also receive more or less depending on whether you were at fault for your accident.

Texas is a modified comparative negligence state, which means that even if you were partly responsible for your injury, you might still be entitled to compensation. In this case, your settlement will be a percentage of the total based on how much you are at fault.

For example, if you are found to be 10% at fault for your car accident and the other party is 90% responsible, you would receive 90% of the total settlement. Taking the above example — a settlement of between $120,000 and $150,000 — you could receive between $108,000 and $135,000.

Contact Our Personal Injury Lawyers Today

When filing a personal injury claim, it’s vital to choose a law firm that you trust to fight for justice and get you the maximum possible payout. That’s why our personal injury lawyers in Texas offer a free, no-obligation case review so that you can see if we’re a good fit for you. After gathering some details on your accident and injuries and how they’ve affected you, we’ll be able to advise on how likely your claim is to succeed, how much you could expect to earn in a settlement, or by taking your case to trial and what happens next. If you choose not to work with us after your initial consultation, that’s fine too.

We work on a contingency fee basis, so you won’t pay a cent unless we win your case. This means you can focus on your recovery without worrying about facing a hefty legal bill before you even get started.

Ready to get started? Use our personal injury settlement calculator for Texas claims now and take the first step toward understanding your compensation. We will help you with your personal injury calculations and advise on what settlement to expect.

Our dedicated and experienced personal injury lawyers in McAllen and San Antonio are here to help you get the compensation you deserve. To schedule your free consultation, call Patino Law Firm at 855-LAW-NINJA or contact us online.