Car Accident Settlements in New York

What is the average car accident settlement in New York?

Searches for an average car accident settlement return a single number, and a single number describes these cases poorly. Public records from the City of New York show why. The figures below cover personal injury claims against the City that were settled with a payment, in the fiscal years when injury claims were recorded separately from property damage.

The average is close to six times the median. A small number of catastrophic cases pulls it upward, so the average describes almost none of the claims in the set. The median is closer to a typical outcome, and even that hides a wide spread: a quarter of these claims settled below $10,000 and a tenth above $300,000.

These are claims against the City, which are not the same as claims against a private driver. Coverage limits, notice requirements and the parties involved all differ. The figures show how widely outcomes vary, and they do not predict the value of any particular case.

What has to be established before value is discussed

A settlement figure is the end of a process, not the start of one. Three things get resolved first, and each of them moves the number.

1. That the other driver was at fault Established through the police report, statements, physical evidence and footage. Where fault is shared, CPLR § 1411 reduces recovery in proportion, so a contested liability picture reduces value before any medical question is reached.
2. That the injury meets the serious injury threshold For most crashes, a claim for pain and suffering requires an injury within the statutory definition in Insurance Law § 5102(d). This is where cases are most often lost, and it turns on medical documentation rather than on how the crash looked.
3. What the injury will cost over a lifetime Past bills are the easy part. Future surgery, therapy, equipment and the earnings a person will no longer make are established with medical and economic opinion, and they usually make up the larger share of a serious case.

What a car accident settlement is made of

• Medical expenses beyond no-fault No-fault covers treatment up to its limit. Everything past that limit, including surgery and long term rehabilitation, belongs in the claim against the driver.
• Lost earnings past the no-fault cap No-fault replaces a portion of wages up to a monthly maximum and for a limited period. The difference between that and actual loss is recoverable.
• Future earning capacity Where an injury changes what work is possible, the loss runs for years and is calculated rather than estimated.
• Pain and suffering Available once the serious injury threshold is met. There is no formula in New York, and the assessment rests on the specific injury and its documented effect on daily life.
• Property damage Vehicle repair or value, handled separately from the injury claim and usually resolved much earlier.

What reduces a settlement, and what you actually receive

Four things commonly bring a figure down:

• Available insurance A claim is limited by the policies that exist. A serious injury caused by a driver carrying minimum coverage may be worth more than can be collected, which is when underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy becomes relevant.
• Shared fault A percentage assigned to you reduces the recovery by that percentage.
• Gaps in treatment Periods without appointments are used to argue the injury resolved, and they weaken the threshold showing.
• Prior injuries to the same body part Not a bar, but it shifts the argument to what this crash changed, which requires earlier records to answer.

The figure agreed with an insurer is also not the figure that reaches you. Health insurers, no-fault carriers and medical providers may have repayment rights against the settlement, and the legal fee and case expenses come out of it as well. Those amounts are worked out before anything is distributed, so the net should be known rather than estimated.

Ask for the projected net, not only the gross figure, before agreeing to any settlement. The two can differ substantially where treatment was extensive.

Car accident results from our practice

• $5,000,000 The full insurance payout for a Garden City woman with a herniated lumbar disc from a Hempstead crash. The insurer argued the injury was arthritis rather than the accident; the arbitration referee found otherwise. The case is a working example of why the medical record decides these claims.
• $1,500,000 For a woman struck from behind while leaving the Thruway in the Bronx, with neck, shoulder and lower back injuries.
• $500,000 For a woman injured head-on after another driver veered into her lane.

More on the case results page.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case is evaluated on its own facts.