How much is my California car accident claim worth

Medical specials: what your treatment cost. In California, Howell v. Hamilton Meats means you recover what was actually paid or is owed, not the inflated billed amount. A worksheet showing both is what keeps an adjuster honest.

Wage loss: hours or days missed, at your real rate, backed by an employer letter or pay records.

Property damage: repair estimate or total-loss value, handled as its own demand and usually paid faster than the injury side.

General damages: pain, limitation, and disruption. This is the negotiated part, and it moves with how objective and how documented your injuries are.

Objective findings beat complaints. An MRI, a fracture, an injection, or a surgical recommendation moves a file far more than the number of chiropractic visits.

Clear liability helps: a police report assigning fault, a cited Vehicle Code violation, an independent witness, a rear-end impact.

Consistent treatment matters. Gaps in care are the first thing an adjuster points at to discount your claim.

A claim is only worth what can actually be collected. If the at-fault driver carries California's minimum liability coverage and has no assets, that limit is usually the practical top of the case no matter what your damages add up to.

Check your own policy for underinsured motorist coverage. It is often the difference between a small recovery and a fair one.

Proposition 213: if you were driving your own uninsured vehicle at the time of the crash, you generally cannot recover non-economic damages at all. Your medical bills and wage loss survive; the pain and suffering portion does not.

The deadline: two years from the crash for personal injury in California, and only six months to present a claim if a government vehicle or entity is involved. Miss either and the value is zero regardless of the injuries.

A death, a catastrophic or permanent injury, a commercial truck, a government vehicle, a disputed-liability multi-car pileup, or a medical malpractice overlay. Those files need someone who will litigate them, and the contingency fee earns itself.

For the ordinary soft-tissue-to-moderate-injury crash with clear liability, the pre-litigation work is documentation, not advocacy. That is the part a firm hands to a paralegal and still charges a third of your settlement for.

At 33%, a $50,000 settlement gives up $16,500 before case costs come out. On a $15,000 settlement it is $4,950. That is the arithmetic worth doing before you sign anything.