Truck accident settlements can happen at any time, from days after the accident to moments before a jury verdict. The settlement amount can range from only a few thousand dollars to well over a million. Numerous factors impact the settlement. But the severity of your injuries, your share of fault for the crash, and available insurance coverage are the biggest factors.
How truck accident cases settle
In the days after the accident, you will be approached by the insurance adjuster for the trucker or trucking company. He or she will make an initial settlement offer. This offer is made to seem like it is a good deal. However, it often only covers your existing medical bills. This would leave you drastically undercompensated.
If you accept the offer, you get the money but lose your right to further legal recourse.
If you decline, it begins a negotiation process between the insurance company and you and your personal injury attorney.
Both sides will gather information about the crash and your injuries. Settlement negotiations will continue.
If no fair settlement offer is made, the next step is to file a personal injury lawsuit if:
- you recover from your injuries, or
- the statute of limitations is approaching.
A trial date will be set. Settlement discussions continue all the way up to trial. If a settlement is still not reached, the trial’s verdict will resolve the case.
However, the vast majority of personal injury cases are settled before trial. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ):
“Among jurisdictions that provided totals for both trial and non-trial general civil dispositions in 2005, trials collectively accounted for about 3% of all [personal injury]… dispositions in general jurisdiction courts.”[1]
The average truck accident settlement amount
There is no “average” truck accident settlement amount because there is no “average” truck accident case. Every case is unique, with unique circumstances and victims. Each detail in a case can make a substantial difference in the settlement that resolves it.
Factors in a truck accident lawsuit settlement
The amount of a truck accident settlement depends on numerous factors. Our personal injury lawyers have found that the three most important are:
- the severity of your injuries,
- whether you were partially to blame, and
- insurance availability.
1. Your injuries
The most important factor in a truck accident settlement is whether you suffered serious injuries in it. The more you have suffered from the crash, the higher the settlement you can expect in the truck accident claim.
Some examples of the catastrophic injuries that can lead to high settlement amounts are:
- brain injuries, including traumatic brain injuries (TBIs),
- spinal cord injuries, and
- dismemberment.
Many motor vehicle accidents involving large trucks or tractor-trailers cause fatalities. These can lead to a wrongful death claim by the victim’s loved ones against the truck driver and their employer.
2. Your shared fault
If you were partially to blame for the accident, the settlement that you can expect will be lower.
Most states use a comparative negligence rule for shared fault. At trial, the jury would assign each party a percentage of fault for the truck accident. In states that use:
- pure comparative negligence, your compensation would be reduced by your percentage of fault, no matter how high it is,[2] or
- modified comparative negligence, your compensation would be reduced by your percentage of fault, but you will receive nothing if you were more than half at fault.[3]
Even though this happens at trial, it can influence the settlement discussions. If it is clear that you shared some responsibility for the crash, the insurance company will reduce their settlement offers. If there are signs that you were the at-fault party, they may refuse to offer a settlement for the auto accident at all.
3. Insurance coverage
If there is not enough insurance coverage, it can lower your settlement offers.
Trucking companies are only legally required to carry $750,000 in liability insurance coverage.[4] If you suffered severe injuries but the insurance policy is the minimum required, you are unlikely to get an offer higher than this amount. You will have to seek other sources of compensation, such as:
- holding the trucker personally liable for the truck crash, and/or
- filing a claim against your underinsured motorist coverage, if you have one.
What these settlements aim to cover
Truck accident settlements aim to predict what a jury’s verdict would award you, which is compensation for your legal damages. There are 2 types of legal damages:
- economic damages, and
- noneconomic damages.
There are also punitive damages. These go beyond compensating you for your losses, though. They are rarely awarded in truck accident cases.
Economic damages
Your economic damages are those that are easily stated in a dollar amount. This includes compensation for things like your medical expenses, property damages, and lost wages.
Noneconomic damages, or pain and suffering
Your noneconomic damages are those that cannot be easily described in a dollar amount. These are things like your physical pain, mental suffering, your loss of life’s enjoyments, emotional distress, and your family’s loss of consortium.
How to estimate a fair settlement in your case
A good way to estimate what your semi-truck accident settlement should be is to use the multiplier method. You would:
- total up all of your economic damages,
- choose a number between 1 and 5 to reflect how much the crash changed your quality of life, with 1 being for crashes that you quickly fully recovered from, and 5 being crashes that have devastated your life and from which you will never recover,
- estimate your noneconomic damages by multiplying your economic damages by the number chosen in step 2, above, and
- add your economic damages to this estimate of your noneconomic damages.
This would provide a fair settlement offer for your injury claim. However, the payout that you receive may be reduced by:
- your shared fault, and
- any lack of insurance coverage or low policy limits.
How a truck accident lawyer can help
A truck accident attorney can help by:
- negotiating on your behalf with the insurance company while you focus on getting the medical treatment you need for your recovery,
- gathering evidence that builds your case for compensation, like any available police reports of the crash,
- providing the experienced legal advice that you need in order to decide whether a settlement offer is fair or not,
- help you understand the true extent of your injuries,
- file a personal injury lawsuit for you, should no fair offer be made, and
- present your case during trial, if one is necessary.
Truck accident victims who get the effective legal representation of a car accident lawyer from a reputable law firm and who has experience handling commercial truck accidents are far more likely to recover fair compensation for their losses.
Additional reading
For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- Costly Crashes: A Small-Town Personal Injury Case Sends a Powerful Message to the Trucking Industry – A.B.A. Journal.
- Evidentiary Issues in Trucking Cases – The Brief.
- Limiting Liability for Trucking Accidents by Uniting Safety and Claims Departments When Addressing the Preventability of Accidents – The Brief.
- The Right-to-Know and the Trucking Industry: Regulating Regulations – Transportation Law Journal.
- Trucking Accidents: Navigating Claims, Investigations, and Litigation – The Brief.
Legal References:
[1] Lynn Langton and Thomas H. Cohen, “Civil Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005,” Bureau of Justice Statistics – Special Report (October, 2008).
[2] Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal.3d 804 (1975) (California)
[3] Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.001 (Texas).
[4] 49 CFR 387.9.
