Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
What determines the number
With a claim open or an offer in hand, what raises a recovery is the coverage ceiling, the documentation behind the number, the demand package sent to the insurer, and the liens and fees that come out at the end. No average settlement is published here, and no page that publishes one can tell you anything about your case. Our guide to filing a car accident claim in Los Angeles covers the process.
Two terms run through everything below. Economic damages, or specials, are the losses with receipts: medical bills, wage loss, lost earning capacity, and out-of-pocket costs. Non-economic damages, or general damages, are pain, physical impairment, emotional distress, and the parts of your life the injury took. The first is proven with documents. The second is proven with the first plus credible detail about what changed.
| Factor | Effect on the number | Can you change it? |
|---|---|---|
| Liability evidence | Decides whether there is a dispute and how big a discount it buys | Yes, by preserving it in the first weeks |
| Medical documentation | Sets the floor and supports everything above it | Yes |
| Consistency of treatment | Gaps get read as recovery and reduce the offer | Yes |
| Available coverage | The hard ceiling on most ordinary claims | No, but you can find additional policies |
| Your comparative fault | Reduces the recovery by your percentage | Partly, with evidence |
Why the insurance caps your settlement
Since January 1, 2025, Vehicle Code section 16056 has required liability limits of not less than $30,000 for bodily injury to or death of one person, $60,000 where two or more are hurt, and $15,000 for property damage, with another increase scheduled for January 1, 2035. Those are minimums, and a large share of drivers on the 405 carry exactly the minimum. One ambulance ride, one emergency room visit, and one MRI can pass $30,000 before anyone has treated anything.
When the policy is that small and the driver has no assets worth pursuing, the case is worth the policy no matter how strong it is. What an attorney can do is send a policy limits demand, a demand for the full limit supported by records that make paying it the insurer's safest option, then look hard for a second source of money.
There is a cap in the other direction too. People assume the owner of the car is the deep pocket. Vehicle Code section 17151 caps the liability of an owner or bailee (someone who holds the car for the owner) who merely permitted someone else to drive at $15,000 for the death of or injury to one person, $30,000 for more than one, and $5,000 for property damage. The cap applies to liability that does not arise through a principal and agent or master and servant relationship, which is why whether the driver was working matters so much.
Three ways past the ceiling
- Your own underinsured motorist coverage. Underinsured motorist coverage, or UIM, pays the difference between the at-fault driver's limits and what your injuries are worth, up to your own limit. It is governed by Insurance Code section 11580.2, which requires the coverage be offered at your liability limits unless you signed an agreement deleting or reducing it. That statute also gives you two years to file suit, conclude a written agreement, or formally demand arbitration, and notifying the adjuster is none of the three.
- A second defendant with a separate policy. If the driver was working, the employer answers for conduct within the scope of employment, the subject of jury instruction CACI 3720. If an owner handed the keys to someone he knew was unfit to drive, negligent entrustment is a separate theory with its own instruction, CACI 724. Both are in the 2026 Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions.
- An umbrella policy. Personal umbrella coverage sits above the auto policy and never appears on the insurance card handed over at the scene. It is found by asking in writing, and it is worth asking every time.
The first month decides the last month
All of this is the difference between a documented claim and an argued one.
- Report every symptom at the first visit. The complaint missing from the first chart note is the one the defense says came from somewhere else.
- Photograph injuries at intervals. Bruising resolves, incisions fade, and scarring changes for a year. Monthly photographs are evidence no later description replaces.
- Keep a journal of function rather than adjectives. Record what you could not lift, which nights you did not sleep through, and the months you did not drive, rather than "my back hurt a lot." Function is what a jury can picture.
- Get wage loss verified in writing. A letter from your employer stating your rate, your schedule, and the dates you missed. A pay stub alone does not show what you would have earned.
- Preserve the vehicle. Photograph it from every side before it is repaired or sold, including the interior, the seat, and the headrest.
Why a gap in treatment costs you
A gap in treatment is any stretch where the records show nothing. It is the most effective argument the other side has, and it costs more than bad negotiating ever does. The reasoning fits in one line of a claim note: a person who stops going to the doctor has stopped hurting.
That reasoning is wrong most of the time, and the reasons are ordinary. People run out of visits, cannot get a Tuesday appointment, go back to work and cannot leave, or feel better in month two and worse in month four. None of that is in the chart unless someone puts it there.
Put it there. Tell the treating doctor why you missed six weeks and ask that the reason go in the note. If cost is the reason, say so. If you were told to continue at home, ask for that in writing. And when a gap already exists, state the reason in the demand before the adjuster characterizes it. Where the injury made an existing condition worse, CACI 3927 addresses aggravation, and CACI 3928 states that a defendant takes an injured person as he finds him.
Why you can decline the recorded statement
You owe your own insurer notice and cooperation under your policy. You have no contract with the other driver's insurer and no obligation to give it a recorded statement, a recorded question and answer session that becomes a transcript in the claim file. There is rarely a reason to give one before you have a diagnosis. We handle those calls.
Why demanding early costs money
Maximum medical improvement is the point at which your condition has stabilized and a doctor can say what is permanent. It is the earliest sound moment to value a claim, because until then nobody knows whether the answer is physical therapy or an operating room. Where a full recovery is far off, a reliable written prognosis serves the same purpose.
Demand before that and you hand the adjuster a number built from an incomplete file. It becomes the anchor, the reference point every later conversation is measured against, and you do not get to move it upward when the MRI comes back. It is the most expensive mistake in an ordinary car case, and it is made out of impatience rather than ignorance.
What goes in the demand package
A demand package is the written presentation of the claim: the facts, the proof, the losses, and the number, sent to the adjuster with a response deadline. Liability comes first and stays short when it is clear. The medicine gets the length. The human consequence gets the most concrete paragraph in the letter. The number comes last.
| Item | Why it is there | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Liability summary and the collision report | Establishes who caused it, briefly | The agency that wrote the report |
| Scene and vehicle photographs | Answers the low-damage argument before it is made | Your phone, the body shop, the tow yard |
| Medical records and itemized bills by provider | The spine of the claim; attached, not characterized | Each provider's records department |
| Imaging reports and a causation and prognosis letter | Connects the crash to the diagnosis and states what is permanent | The treating physician |
| Wage loss verification and a damages summary | Turns the losses into a number an adjuster can approve | Your employer, and your own file |
Attach the records rather than describing them. An adjuster who has to take your word for a diagnosis will discount it.
Why the first offer is low
The first offer is priced off what the adjuster knows in month two, minus room to move. It is not a valuation and it is not an insult; it is an opening position, and it should be answered with the record rather than with indignation. Ask in writing which parts of the demand the insurer disputes and why, then respond to those points.
Asking above the number you would accept is sound, and it has a limit. A demand nobody can support tells the adjuster the file was not worked. A demand that walks through the records and lands on a defensible number does the opposite.
What reduces an offer
- Driving uninsured, or a DUI conviction from this crash. Civil Code section 3333.4, enacted by Proposition 213, bars non-economic damages for the owner of an uninsured vehicle involved in the accident and for a driver convicted of driving under the influence in it. Medical bills and wage loss survive; pain and suffering does not. One carve-out: an uninsured owner injured by a driver who was under the influence keeps those damages.
- Comparative fault. California reduces your recovery by your own percentage, with no cutoff. CACI 405 and 406 are the instructions. Evidence rather than argument is what moves the percentage.
- Prior claims and prior injuries in the same body part. Not fatal, and not something to conceal. Disclosed early, a prior injury supports an aggravation claim. Discovered late, it damages your credibility on everything else.
- Social media. A photograph of you upright at a party proves nothing and will still be shown to a jury.
- Inconsistent statements. The recorded statement where you said you were fine, given before you had a diagnosis, is the one the insurer reads back.
Liens and what you take home
The gross settlement is not what you get. A lien is a right to be paid out of your recovery. Subrogation and reimbursement are how a health plan gets back what it paid for crash-related treatment. Net recovery is what is left after fees, costs, and every lien. Two California statutes shape that arithmetic.
Civil Code section 3040 caps a health care service plan's or health insurer's lien on your recovery. Where you are represented by an attorney, the lien may not exceed one third of the money due to you under the judgment, compromise, or settlement. Where you are not represented, the ceiling is one half. The lien is subject to pro rata reduction commensurate with your reasonable attorney's fees and costs under the common fund doctrine, so the plan bears its share of what it cost to collect, and where comparative fault reduced your recovery, the lien is reduced by the same percentage.
Civil Code section 3045.1 gives a California hospital a lien on damages recovered by a person it treated for injuries from an accident or wrongful act, to the extent of the reasonable and necessary charges of the hospital and any affiliated health facility. A hospital's billed charge is an opening position too.
The practical point: liens are negotiable, and on a claim near the coverage ceiling, a lien reduction moves your net more than another round of arguing on the gross. Our guide to car accident lawyer fees covers how the fee is set, and our post on how contingency fees work walks the deductions from gross recovery to the check.
What your fee agreement has to say
Business and Professions Code section 6147 requires a contingency fee contract to be in writing, with a duplicate signed by both the attorney and the client given to the client at the time the contract is entered into. It must state the agreed contingency fee rate, how disbursements and costs affect both the fee and the client's recovery, and the extent of any compensation for related matters outside the agreement. It must also state that the fee is not set by law but is negotiable. Failure to comply renders the agreement voidable, meaning you can cancel it, at the plaintiff's option, and the attorney is then entitled only to a reasonable fee.
Read the costs clause before you sign. Whether the fee is calculated before or after costs are deducted changes your net on the same settlement, and section 6147 exists so you can see that difference on paper.
When to say no and file
A demand has force only if there is a real alternative behind it, and that alternative is the courthouse. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years to file. Under section 85, a case is limited civil when the amount in controversy does not exceed $35,000, excluding fees, interest, and costs, and unlimited above that line. Personal injury cases in Los Angeles County are assigned through the Superior Court's Personal Injury Hub courts under its General Order Re Assignment and Transfer of Personal Injury Cases, effective May 17, 2024, published on the court's civil division page.
Filing costs time. It also changes who reads the file, moving the case from a claims adjuster to defense counsel and a reserve committee, which sets the money the insurer holds for the case. That is often when the number moves.
The gap between first offer and recovery
We publish first offers next to recoveries because the distance between them is the argument of this page. One of our rear-end cases opened at $31,500 and resolved for $1,250,000 after back surgery. A head-on collision with an impaired driver resolved for $550,000.
Rear-end crash, herniated disc
Hit at a stoplight by a texting driver on the job. Back surgery, then a real settlement.
Head-on collision, broken elbow
A driver under the influence crossed the center line on a rural road. Careful documentation and witness testimony carried the claim.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case depends on its own facts, injuries, and insurance coverage. Amounts shown are gross recoveries before attorney's fees, costs, and medical liens.
When you should take the offer
Not every claim needs any of this. If the damage was to the car alone, or you were examined once, treated briefly, and fully recovered, and the offer approximates your documented bills plus a fair amount for the weeks you lost, take it. Read the release first. A property damage release should not carry injury release language.
Call our attorneys when treatment runs past a few visits, when surgery is on the table, when fault is contested, when the at-fault driver was uninsured or carried the minimum, when a public agency vehicle is involved, or when the offer arrives with a medical authorization attached.
How a car accident settlement is maximized
You build the two things you control and find out early about the one you do not. Treat consistently, and let the chart say why when you cannot. Document function rather than adjectives. Preserve the liability evidence while it still exists. Then establish what coverage is there, because a claim worth more than the policy is a different case, and that answer changes what you do next rather than how hard you push.
Nobody can tell you what your case is worth from a web page, and anyone publishing an average is describing someone else. Tell us what happened and we will tell you what the file needs and where the ceiling probably is. No fee unless we recover. Our Los Angeles car accident lawyer page explains how we build a claim, our guide to fault in a rear-end collision covers the liability side, and our Los Angeles motorcycle accident lawyer page covers a claim argued on different terms.