Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
A first offer is built from the damage categories, the coverage ceiling and the deductions, and each of those can be checked. No web page can give you a number. For fault and deadlines, start at our Los Angeles motorcycle accident lawyer page.
Why average settlement figures mislead
An average of settlements is an average of unlike things. It mixes a soft tissue claim against a $30,000 policy with a spinal cord case against a commercial fleet, and it hides the variable that decides most rider files: how much insurance existed on the day of the crash. A page that publishes an average is describing its own case mix.
What you can be paid for
A verdict is built category by category from the Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions, and every settlement is negotiated against that structure. Economic damages are objectively verifiable monetary losses. Non-economic damages are the subjective losses: pain, suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment. Civil Code section 1431.2 draws that line and ties each defendant's share of the non-economic half to its own percentage of fault.
| Category | Instruction | What the file has to contain |
|---|---|---|
| Past and future medical care | CACI No. 3903A | Billing records, and a treating physician on the care you are reasonably certain to need |
| Past and future lost earnings | CACI No. 3903C | Pay records, tax returns, and a physician's work restrictions with dates |
| Lost earning capacity | CACI No. 3903D | A vocational analysis and an economist. No work history is required to claim it |
| Loss of ability to provide household services | CACI No. 3903E | What you did before and what it costs to hire out now |
| Pain, suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment | CACI No. 3905A | Treating records, scar photographs over time, and people who knew you before |
Two more instructions matter to riders specifically. CACI No. 3927 makes the aggravation of a preexisting condition compensable, which answers the insurance adjuster who found an old lumbar MRI. CACI No. 3928 requires full damages even where the injured person was more susceptible to injury than a normally healthy person. Both are in the 2026 edition of the instructions, and both come up in every serious file.
Why the driver's policy caps your claim
Vehicle Code section 16056 requires not less than $30,000 for bodily injury to or death of one person, $60,000 for two or more, and $15,000 for property damage, effective January 1, 2025. The same section raises those amounts by $20,000, $40,000 and $10,000 on January 1, 2035. Those are minimums, and a large share of California drivers buy exactly the minimum. That ceiling ends more rider claims than any argument about fault.
Insurance Code section 11580.2 fills the gap when a rider bought the coverage. Uninsured motorist coverage responds when the other driver has none. Underinsured motorist coverage, in subdivision (p), responds when the other driver is insured for less than the uninsured motorist limits carried on your own vehicle. If you carry the same limits the other driver carries, there is no gap to fill. The section also lets an insurer and a named insured delete or reduce the coverage by written agreement, which is how many riders end up without it.
| Layer | Source | What limits it |
|---|---|---|
| Driver's bodily injury liability | The at-fault driver's policy | $30,000 per person minimum under Vehicle Code 16056 |
| Owner who merely lent the car | Vehicle Code 17151 | $15,000 one person, $30,000 more than one, $5,000 property |
| Employer of a driver on the job | The commercial policy | Requires proof the driver was acting in the scope of employment |
| Your underinsured motorist coverage | Insurance Code 11580.2(p) | Pays only the amount by which your limits exceed the driver's |
| Your medical payments coverage | Your own policy | Small limits, paid regardless of fault, often reimbursable |
Riding uninsured cuts what you can recover
Civil Code section 3333.4, the statute Proposition 213 enacted, bars recovery of non-economic losses, meaning pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment and disfigurement, in three situations. The injured person owned a vehicle involved in the crash that was not insured as the financial responsibility laws require, was operating one and cannot establish financial responsibility, or was convicted of driving under the influence in that crash. In a rider case that usually removes most of the value while leaving every medical bill and every lost paycheck recoverable.
Subdivision (c) carries the exception. If the uninsured owner was injured by a driver who was operating in violation of the drunk driving statutes and was convicted of that offense, the bar does not apply and the non-economic damages come back. That subdivision has restored the value of files that insurers had already written down to the medical specials, meaning the medical bills alone.
One result and the facts behind it
Motorcycle, broken leg
A car changed lanes without signaling. Witnesses and reconstruction overcame the denial.
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.
Our client was a 32-year-old man riding his motorcycle when a car changed lanes without signaling. He swerved, went down, and broke his leg. The car's insurer denied the claim outright and the first offer was nothing. We proved the driver's negligence with witness testimony and accident reconstruction, and the case resolved for $600,000, covering his medical expenses, lost earnings, and pain and suffering. The injury was never disputed. The case was carried by the liability proof the denial made necessary.
What comes out before you are paid
A gross recovery is the total paid by the insurers before anything comes out of it. A lien is a right to be repaid from that money, held by a health plan, a treating provider, or a government program. A demand is the written package that starts the negotiation, and we do not send it until treatment is complete or a physician can state the future course.
| Deduction | Where it comes from | Negotiable? |
|---|---|---|
| Attorney's fee | The written contingency agreement | The rate is set at signing, not at the end |
| Case costs | Records, filing fees, reconstruction, deposition transcripts | No, but they should be itemized and receipted |
| Health plan reimbursement | The plan's own terms and applicable law | Often, and it is where a good result is protected or lost |
| Provider and hospital liens | Signed lien agreements and statutory liens | Frequently, and reductions are expected |
| Medical payments (med pay) reimbursement | Your own policy language | Sometimes, depending on the policy |
One rule about the fee applies before you sign anything. Business and Professions Code section 6147 requires a contingency fee agreement to be in writing and to state the rate. It must also explain how costs affect both the fee and your recovery, and state that the fee is not set by law but is negotiable. You receive a signed duplicate when the contract is made. An agreement that does not comply is voidable at the client's option.
When the usual arithmetic changes
- More than one claimant on the same policy. A $60,000 aggregate divides among everyone hurt in the crash, and the insurer may interplead it, meaning deposit it with the court for the claimants to divide, rather than choose. A passenger and a rider are competing for one pot.
- The owner only lent the car. Vehicle Code section 17151 caps an owner who was not driving at $15,000 for one person. Finding a second, uncapped defendant is often worth more than the argument with the first.
- The driver was working. An employer's commercial policy changes the ceiling entirely, which is why the first question after the crash is where the driver was going.
- Comparative fault on a rider. A speed or lane position argument reduces the number by your percentage of fault, and it applies to the whole verdict rather than to one category.
- The case is worth more than all available coverage. Then the work is finding another defendant or another policy, and a demand for the full policy limits, made properly and early, protects the claim later.
- A wrongful death claim. The categories change, the instructions change, and the heirs are decided by statute rather than by agreement.
Two questions are answered before valuation begins: whether a lane position argument holds, which our lane splitting accidents page addresses, and who had the right of way, which our left turn and right of way accidents page addresses. If the injuries are permanent, the valuation moves to life care planning, covered on our Los Angeles catastrophic injury lawyer page.
No fee unless we recover.