A typical soft-tissue injury claim values pain and suffering at 1.5 to 2 times documented medical bills; severe or permanent injuries run 4 to 5 times. These calculators apply the multiplier and per-diem methods insurance adjusters use, so you can see a number before you negotiate one.
Moderate injury (3×) on $24,000 in medical bills. Try your own figures in the full calculator. Runs in your browser - nothing is sent anywhere.
Six tools for estimating non-economic damages.
Both valuation methods, side by side.
Run my estimate →Medical bills times a severity factor. The adjuster has a formula; now you do too.
Run my estimate →A daily rate for suffering, multiplied by the days it lasted.
Run my estimate →Non-economic damages specific to a vehicle crash.
Run my estimate →All non-economic damages, including emotional distress, in one figure.
Run my estimate →Medical costs, lost income and future care with a comparative-negligence adjustment.
Run my estimate →Our own model's severity multipliers, per-diem rate ranges, and comparative-negligence notes by state rule type - published as a citable dataset with methodology and a downloadable CSV.
Medical bills and lost wages are easy to total. Pain, suffering, and the activities you can no longer do are harder to value, and that is exactly where insurers tend to lowball. These tools apply the two standard methods so you can put a defensible number on the intangible part of your claim.
Six calculators live under one roof here, and most visitors only need one of them. If you were in a car accident and the other driver's insurer is already calling, start with the car accident pain and suffering calculator or, for the full claim including medical bills and lost income, the car accident compensation calculator, which also applies a comparative-negligence adjustment if you were partly at fault. If your injury did not involve a vehicle, the general pain and suffering calculator runs both valuation methods side by side and is the right starting point. Want to see just one method in isolation, maybe because your attorney already told you which one an adjuster is likely to use? The multiplier method calculator and the per-diem calculator isolate each. And if your claim includes emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, or other non-economic harm beyond physical pain, the general damages calculator covers the broader category. When in doubt, run your numbers through more than one; the gap between them tells you something too.
Every multiplier and every per-diem rate here is a starting assumption, not a rule of law. The multiplier method assumes a range of 1.5 times medical bills for a minor soft-tissue injury with full recovery in a few weeks, up to 5 times for a severe or permanent injury with lasting impairment or scarring. A moderate injury with months of treatment and documented functional limitation sits around 3 times. The per-diem method assumes a daily rate, $200 by default in the calculator, multiplied by recovery days; some people prefer to base that daily rate on lost income divided by roughly 260 working days a year instead of picking a round number. Neither method is written into any statute. Adjusters use them as negotiating anchors, and so do plaintiff's attorneys, which is exactly why it helps to see both numbers before anyone else states one to you. The calculators also do not know your state's fault rule. A handful of states bar recovery entirely if you are found more than 50% at fault or, in a few states, at any fault at all; most others simply reduce your award by your percentage of fault. That single fact can matter more than which multiplier you pick, so treat the output here as a floor for the conversation, not the final word.
The most common one is accepting a first offer before medical treatment is finished. Insurers move fast for a reason: once you sign a release, the claim is closed even if new symptoms show up next month. A related mistake is stopping treatment early, or having long gaps between appointments, because an adjuster will read that gap as evidence the injury was not serious. People also tend to skip the accounting for smaller items: mileage to appointments, over-the-counter medication, household help while immobile, and any wages lost even for partial days. None of that data changes the two big multipliers here, but it does raise the medical-bills figure that the multiplier method is built on. Finally, do not assume a scarier-sounding number online is a promise. A tool like this one shows you a plausible range; the number an insurer actually pays depends on liability, the quality of your medical documentation, and, in states with a fault rule, exactly how the blame gets split.
No. They are built for anyone to run before a conversation with an adjuster or an attorney. For anything past a minor claim with clear liability, though, a consultation is usually free and worth the hour.
They are two different ways of estimating the same intangible loss, not two measurements of the same thing. The multiplier scales off your medical bills; the per-diem method prices each day of recovery on its own. A gap between them is normal. It is a range to negotiate within, not an error to fix.
Yes, and the calculators here do not apply it automatically. Depending on your state, being found partly at fault can reduce your payout by that percentage, or in a smaller group of states, bar it completely above a threshold. Check the value factors reference for the rule categories by state before you rely on any number here.
Yes. Run more than one calculator on this site, and if the claim is significant, get an opinion from more than one attorney. Most personal injury consultations are free, and a second read on the same facts costs you nothing but time.
Government sources behind the figures on this page, so you are not taking our word for any of it: