What the Data (2025) Says — National-Level Benchmarks

Because there is no publicly maintained, comprehensive “by-state average settlement amount for car accidents” data set in the U.S., most of the available numbers are from law-firm analyses, aggregated studies, or sampling of closed cases.

Here’s a summary of the typical findings as of 2025:

According to a 2025 analysis by one personal injury data aggregator, the average car accident settlement is about US$37,248.62, based on ~4,500 post-2021 cases.
Another source puts the average across all personal injury cases (including car accidents) at US$55,056.08 (data from 5,861 cases settled 2021–2024).
A survey of actual car-crash injury settlements in November 2025 finds an average payout of US$30,416.
For “minor” car-accident claims (soft tissue injuries, limited medical bills), some sources show typical settlements in the US$3,000 – US$15,000 range.
For serious crashes (fractures, surgeries, long-term disability, major injuries) — including neck/back injuries, traumatic brain injuries, or permanent disability — settlements often move into the six-figure range ($100,000+), and in extreme cases, into millions.

So, at a national level, a “typical” car-accident settlement in 2025 often lands somewhere between US$20,000 and US$50,000, though many cases fall outside that band depending on severity, losses, and legal circumstances.

Why It’s Practically Impossible to Provide Reliable “State-by-State Averages”

Many articles you’ll see claiming “State-X pays an average of $500,000 for car accidents” are either:

Based on a handful of high-end verdicts (outliers), which greatly inflate the “average.”
Non-representative samples (only severe injury cases, or only cases that went to trial).
From private law-firm databases, not a publicly verified or comprehensive data set — and often with confidentiality provisions preventing full disclosure.

Here are the main barriers:

Settlements are overwhelmingly private. Nearly all car-accident injury cases settle out-of-court rather than go to trial. Published verdicts represent just a small fraction of cases, and they tend to be the most severe or high-value ones, skewing averages upward.
Legal frameworks vary widely by state. Laws governing negligence, comparative fault, non-economic damage caps (for pain & suffering), statutes of limitation, and mandatory insurance thresholds differ — influencing the value and likelihood of large settlements.
Insurance coverage differences. The amount of liability insurance carried by the at-fault party frequently places a hard ceiling on what’s realistically recoverable — regardless of claimed damages.
Case-by-case variability. Two accidents in the same city can have drastically different outcomes depending on speed, injuries, medical costs, fault, long-term disability, proof, etc.

Because of these variables, no authoritative public dataset exists that tracks “average car-accident settlement per state (2025)” in a way that can produce fair or reliable cross-state comparisons.

What Some “State-Level” Data Claims — Take With Caution

Some private studies or legal-blog posts attempt to provide “state-by-state” data — often focusing on particular injury types (e.g. neck/back injuries) or verdicts. For example:

A report presenting “neck and back injury settlement amounts by state” lists numbers like ~US$462,900 (median US$320,000) for Michigan, ~US$1.7 million (median US$340,000) for Kansas, ~US$242,567 (median US$200,000) for Maine, among others.
However, these numbers are likely skewed by outlier cases (catastrophic injuries, jury awards, especially high medical costs), and the reports themselves often acknowledge that the “average” is not representative of the typical car-accident claim.

Thus, while such state-level “average/median” data may offer anecdotal insight — especially for serious injury cases — they are not a reliable predictor of what a typical car-accident settlement will be in those states.