ES(312) 555-0199Free case review
EspañolCall (312) 555-0199Free case review

Truck accident case value estimator

A rough range for a truck accident claim in Chicago, IL, from your bills, lost pay and injury. An illustration. Nobody can promise you an amount.

Call (312) 555-0199Start the estimate

Free. No sign-up. Your numbers stay in your browser unless you ask a lawyer to check them.

A claim is weighed in partsIllustration
The insurer'sfirst numberMedical billsFuture careLost incomePain and suffering
A first offer is one number. A claim is weighed in parts, and each loss you can document adds weight to your side of the beam.

Five answers. One rough range.

Type what you know. Your range of damages, the legal word for the money a claim can recover, updates as you go. It is shown in full, with nothing to sign up for.

Ambulance, hospital, surgery, therapy, prescriptions. A rough total is fine.

Optional. Use a figure a doctor has given you for more surgery, therapy or equipment.

Pay you have missed, plus pay you expect to miss while you recover.

How serious and lasting is the injury?

Pick the closest. It sets the multiplier used to illustrate your non-economic damages: pain and suffering, disability and the loss of a normal life.

This is the multiplier method, a rule of thumb that insurers and lawyers use for a first look. It is not Illinois law, and a jury is not bound by it.

0%

If no one has blamed you for the crash, leave this at 0%.

Illinois follows modified comparative negligence: a recovery is reduced by your share of the fault and barred above 50% (735 ILCS 5/2-1116). Fault is argued, not fixed. The share an adjuster gives you is an opening position, and their first number is not the last word.

Your rough rangeAppears as you typeDetails

Your rough range

Your range appears here as you type.

Start with your medical bills or your lost income. Then pick how serious the injury is.

Low end

High end

Economic damagesMedical bills, future care, lost income
$0
Non-economic damagesPain and suffering: economic damages × a multiplier
Not set
Comparative negligence, 0%Less your share of the fault
$0

General information, not legal advice. Using this tool does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Have a lawyer check this estimate

This step is optional. Your range above is complete without it. A lawyer looks at what the calculator cannot: the crash report, the insurance in play, who carries liability (the legal responsibility for the crash) and what your treatment is likely to cost. The review is free and you are under no obligation.

We receive your name, your phone number and the numbers you entered above. Nothing is sent until you press the button.

What this estimate leaves out.

6 things can move a real claim, or what you keep from it, further than anything you typed above. None of them fits in a calculator.

Six parts outside the calculatorNo sizes. None can be measured from 5 answers.

Can lift a claim above the range

  • Future earning capacity
  • More than one defendant
  • Punitive damages

Economic damagesNon-economic damages

  • Policy limits
  • Liens and subrogation
  • Fee and case costs

Can limit a recovery or come out of it

The bar is all the calculator counts. Parts 1 to 3 can lift a claim above the range. Parts 4 to 6 limit a recovery or come out of it. Each one is explained below.

  1. Future earning capacity

    If the injury changes the work you can do for the rest of your career, that loss is priced by a vocational expert and an economist. It can be the largest part of a claim, and a rule of thumb cannot see it.

  2. More than one defendant

    The driver, the carrier, a broker, a shipper, a repair shop or a parts maker can each be a defendant, a party the claim is brought against, if its negligence, a failure to use reasonable care, helped cause the crash. More defendants can mean more insurance and a different split of the fault.

  3. Punitive damages

    Punitive damages are money meant to punish conduct such as falsified logs, not to make up for a loss. In Illinois they cannot be claimed when a negligence case is first filed. A judge must allow it after a hearing (735 ILCS 5/2-604.1). They are uncommon, and this tool ignores them.

  4. Policy limits

    A claim is paid from the insurance and assets that exist. Policy limits are the most an insurance policy will pay, whatever the claim is worth. Federal rules set the minimum a carrier must hold: $750,000 for general freight and up to $5,000,000 for hazardous cargo (49 CFR 387.9). Many carriers hold more. The real limits come out in the case.

  5. Liens and subrogation

    Hospitals and doctors with unpaid bills can hold a lien, a legal claim on your recovery. Illinois limits those health care liens, taken together, to 40% of the recovery (770 ILCS 23/10). A health insurer that paid for your care can ask to be repaid from the recovery too. That right is called subrogation. What you keep depends on how both are resolved.

  6. The contingency fee and case costs

    The range is a gross figure. RBH Law Office works on a contingency fee, a fee paid only out of a recovery: 40% of the recovery. If there is no recovery, there is no fee. The firm advances case costs, such as experts and court filings, and is repaid from the recovery. The result shows the 40% as an illustration. Case costs differ in every case, so they stay as "varies".

What moves the number.

The same crash can be worth very different amounts. 4 things decide which way it goes, and the first two are partly in your hands.

The same crash, set four waysNo dollar scale. Nobody can price these in advance.

Nothing set. The needle rests on the range from your 5 answers.

Evidence

Your treatment record

Policy limits

Venue

Press a setting to see which way it leans. The dial shows direction only. How far each one moves a real claim depends on the evidence.

  • Evidence

    Pushes it up

    The truck's data recorder, the driver's electronic logs, dashcam video and inspection records, secured early. They are how negligence and liability are proved.

    Pulls it down

    Evidence that is gone. A carrier has to keep a driver's logs for only 6 months (49 CFR 395.8(k)).

  • Your treatment record

    Pushes it up

    Care that starts promptly and continues, with doctors who put your limits and your future needs in writing.

    Pulls it down

    Gaps in treatment. A gap is the first thing an insurer points to.

  • Policy limits

    Pushes it up

    More than one policy in play: the carrier's, a broker's, and excess or umbrella cover above them.

    Pulls it down

    A single policy at the federal minimum, with several injured people claiming against it.

  • Venue

    What decides it

    Venue is the county where a case is filed. It depends on where the crash happened and where the companies do business.

    Why it matters

    Jurors in different counties can weigh the same injury differently, and both sides price that into a settlement.

The adjuster's first number is built before most of this is known. So is the range above.

How the estimate works.

3 lines of arithmetic, known as the multiplier method. One rule in it is Illinois law. The rest is a rule of thumb, shown here so you can check every step yourself.

The formula

  1. Economic damages= medical bills + future care + lost income
  2. Non-economic damages= economic damages × a multiplier, from 1.5 to 5. This line stands for pain and suffering.
  3. Rough range= economic damages + non-economic damages, reduced by your share of the fault

Together, the first two lines are compensatory damages: money that makes up for a loss. Illinois sets no cap on them in an injury case.

If the plaintiff, the injured person bringing the claim, is more than 50% at fault, the result is $0. That part is Illinois law, the rule of modified comparative negligence (735 ILCS 5/2-1116). The multiplier is not law.

One example, step by stepExample numbers
  1. Medical bills so far$40,000
  2. Expected future care$10,000
  3. Lost income$10,000
  4. Economic damages$60,000
  5. Non-economic damages: economic damages × 2.5 to 3.5 (surgery)$150,000 to $210,000
  6. Less a 20% share of the fault−$42,000 to −$54,000
  7. Rough range$168,000 to $216,000

Low end$168,000

High end$216,000

  • Economic damages
  • Non-economic damages
  • Lost to a 20% share of the fault

Not taken out of that range: a 40% contingency fee on it, as an illustration$67,200 to $86,400

The numbers were picked so the arithmetic is easy to follow. They are not an average, a typical case or a result of this firm.

Adjusters often apply the multiplier to medical bills alone. This tool applies it to all of your economic damages, so its figure for non-economic damages runs higher than that version would. Either way it is a starting point for a conversation, not a measure of what you have been through.

Why online calculators are rough.

Including this one. Three honest reasons.

The band narrows as records arriveDrawn, not measured
  1. 5 answers typed into a calculator
  2. Medical records and bills
  3. Pay and work history
  4. Crash report and the truck's data
  5. Policy limits disclosed
With 5 answers, the band of possible values is at its widest. Each record takes some of the guesswork out. The band never closes to a point: a settlement is negotiated, and a verdict is decided by a jury.

  • It knows only what you typed.

    A real valuation starts with records: every bill, every chart note, your pay history, the crash report and the truck's own data. In a lawsuit the burden of proof is yours: you have to show that each loss is more probably true than not. This page has 5 answers. If one of them is a guess, the range is a guess too.

  • The multiplier is a habit, not a law.

    Insurers and lawyers use multipliers, often between 1.5 and 5, for a first look. Illinois jurors are not given one. They are told to fix the amount of damages that will reasonably and fairly compensate you for the losses the evidence proves. Two juries can hear the same facts and return different verdicts.

  • The biggest factors are not on the form.

    The policy limits, how many defendants share the liability, how the fault is argued and where the case is filed can each change a settlement or a verdict more than any multiplier. None of them can be typed into a box.

Read next.

The estimate is a first look. These pages cover the parts that decide the real figure.

Your rough range leaves 3 questions open

All tools

Questions about the estimate.

Is this what my case is worth?

No. It is a rough illustration built from 5 answers and a rule of thumb. It does not look at your records, the evidence or the insurance in play. A settlement or a verdict can come out lower or higher than this range, and no lawyer can promise you an amount.

Why does the estimate drop to $0 above 50% fault?

Illinois uses modified comparative negligence, a rule that counts your own share of the fault against your recovery. If you are 50% or less at fault, your damages are reduced by your share. If you are more than 50% at fault, you recover nothing (735 ILCS 5/2-1116). The tool applies that rule exactly as written.

The adjuster says I was partly at fault. Is that final?

No. A share of the fault is an argument, not a ruling. It is decided from evidence: the truck's data, the driver's logs, video, witnesses and the crash scene. Carriers have a reason to push your share above 50%. Do not accept a percentage before a lawyer has looked at the evidence.

I do not know my future medical costs. What should I enter?

Tick "I am not sure yet". The tool leaves future care out and says so next to your range. Most people cannot know this in the first weeks. When a doctor gives you a figure, add it and the range updates.

What would the lawyer's fee be on this range?

RBH Law Office works on a contingency fee, a fee paid only out of a recovery. It is 40% of the recovery, and if there is no recovery there is no fee. The firm advances case costs and is repaid from the recovery. Under your range, the tool shows what 40% of the low end and of the high end would be, as an illustration.

Does the tool save or send my numbers?

The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing is saved, and nothing is sent to us unless you fill in the short form asking a lawyer to check the estimate. That form is optional. If you use it, we receive your name, your phone number and the numbers you entered.

How long do I have to bring a claim?

The statute of limitations, the legal deadline to file a lawsuit, is 2 years from the crash in most Illinois injury cases (735 ILCS 5/13-202). A claim against a local public body such as the City of Chicago or the CTA has a 1-year deadline (745 ILCS 10/8-101; for the CTA, 70 ILCS 3605/41). The deadline checker on this site works out the dates for your crash.

What you keep as your share of the fault risesThe rule behind question 2
AllHalf$00%50%100%Your share of the faultAt 50%, halfAt 51%, nothing
Modified comparative negligence, drawn as the statute states it. Up to 50% at fault, your damages are reduced by your share. One point more, and the recovery is barred (735 ILCS 5/2-1116).

A calculator has 5 answers. Your case has a file. Call, and a lawyer goes through your numbers with you and tells you what the evidence changes. The call is free.

Call (312) 555-0199Tell us what happened

Sources

  • Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1116 (modified comparative negligence: recovery reduced by the plaintiff's share of the fault and barred above 50%)
  • Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-604.1 (pleading of punitive damages)
  • Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/13-202 (statute of limitations for personal injury: 2 years)
  • Illinois Health Care Services Lien Act, 770 ILCS 23/10 (health care liens limited to 40% of a verdict or settlement)
  • Illinois Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/8-101 (1-year limit for claims against a local public entity)
  • Illinois Metropolitan Transit Authority Act, 70 ILCS 3605/41 (1-year limit for injury claims against the Chicago Transit Authority)
  • Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Jury Instructions in Civil Cases, Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Civil, No. 30.01 (measure of damages) and No. 21.01 (meaning of burden of proof)
  • Supreme Court of Illinois, Best v. Taylor Machine Works, 179 Ill. 2d 367 (1997) (statutory cap on non-economic damages held unconstitutional)
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR 387.9 (minimum levels of financial responsibility for motor carriers)
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR 395.8(k) (retention of drivers' records of duty status for 6 months)
  • AllLaw, published by Nolo, guide to the multiplier method insurers use to value pain and suffering (multipliers commonly 1.5 to 5)
  • RBH Law Office fee terms, a stated assumption of this demonstration site: contingency fee of 40% of the recovery, no fee if there is no recovery, case costs advanced by the firm and repaid from the recovery

Tell us what happened. We will tell you what happens next.

Call, or send the form. A lawyer, not an intake service, calls you back within the hour. Free, confidential, no obligation.

No fee unless we winWe come to youAvailable 24/7

  1. NowYou call or send the form.
  2. Within the hourA lawyer calls you back.
  3. The day you retain usThe preservation letter goes out.

Or call (312) 555-0199 · Se habla español

Call nowFree case review