Personal Injury | April 16, 2025 by JOSHUA D. ANDERSON

What’s the Average Settlement for Car Accident Back and Neck Injury in Washington State?

A neck and back injury from a car accident can be serious. What seems like a minor case of whiplash could turn out to be more serious than you realize. You know you’re entitled to a fair settlement for your bodily injuries and want the maximum compensation possible. But you may also wonder what the average settlement for a back or neck injury is in Washington State and what factors can impact your ability to receive fair compensation.

Average Car Accident Settlement Amount in Washington State

It’s hard to say for certain what the average car accident settlement amount in Washington State is. Currently, no public data tracks the final amount of any settlement car accident victims receive. However, it’s safe to say that, generally, simple or minor cases, like a fender bender without injuries, have a smaller average settlement than car accidents with more extensive vehicle damage and a moderate injury claim, like a broken arm. Car accident victims with severe injuries, like spinal cord injuries, will likely receive an average settlement amount that’s far larger due to the nature and extent of their injuries.

What Factors Influence the Settlement Amount?

Ultimately, the details and specifics of your car accident, injury, and damages impact your final settlement amount, and every detail and the specifics can be divided into two categories that help calculate your final settlement amount: economic and noneconomic damages.

Economic damages for your car accident claim are your direct costs and losses, like medical bills and lost wages. Recovering economic damages helps you regain your financial footing and pay for direct expenses. As a rule, calculating economic damages is easier than noneconomic ones. Economic damages are generally objective and have clear documentation, like how much it costs to repair your bumper or what the doctor charged to treat your neck injury.

Noneconomic damages, often referred to as pain and suffering, are also a direct cost and loss to you, but they aren’t as objective and straightforward as economic damages. Recovering noneconomic damages helps compensate you for the pain, distress, and other intangible but valuable losses you incur from a car accident.

Washington State does not cap the amount of economic or noneconomic damages in personal injury claims, allowing you to receive full compensation for all of your losses. So, what are the factors that can impact your car accident settlement?

How Severe the Injury Is

Generally speaking, it’s longer and more expensive to recover from severe injuries than less serious ones. The type of injury you’ve sustained, and the long-term impact on your life are critical factors in determining your final settlement amount.

For example, a neck injury can be less severe than a back and neck injury, but not always. And while spinal cord damage is serious, the severity of the damage matters. Experiencing mild numbness in one leg due to a herniated disc doesn’t have the same long-term impact as paralysis of the legs.

Medical Expenses

While immediate medical expenses are generally easy to quantify, calculating future medical expenses for ongoing medical treatment is more difficult. For example, someone with a back and neck injury may appear to have a straightforward medical expense. However, if you work in construction or as a car mechanic, you may need intensive medical treatment or physical therapy to recover your ability to move safely and continue in your chosen profession, resulting in higher medical bills.

Lost Wages

Lost wages are an economic damage that, on the surface, seems easy to quantify. Someone who missed a week of work and didn’t get paid for that time off has a clear record of their lost pay. 

However, your car accident claim settlement can change if you’re also pursuing future lost wages because you can no longer work in your chosen profession due to the car accident. For example, if you were a nurse before the accident but cannot return to nursing because of a permanent back and neck injury that makes it impossible for you to continue being a nurse, you may be able to pursue future loss wages as part of your injury claim.

Pain and Suffering

Pain and suffering is noneconomic damage you can recover that can significantly impact your final settlement amount. It’s also a broad term that includes the immediate physical pain you suffered from the car accident as well as any chronic pain and comfort you experience like:

• Back pain
• Neck injury or pain
• Broken bones
• Headaches
• Whiplash
• Soft tissue injuries

Pain and suffering also include the emotional distress and psychological damage that may be caused by the car accident. These are harder to quantify but can impact your final car accident settlement amount. You can request compensation for:

• PTSD
• Insomnia caused by physical or psychological pain
• Anxiety
• Fear
• Cognitive changes due to a brain injury

Pain and suffering are specific to each case. They are, in essence, all the ways an accident has affected an injured party, from disrupted routines or hobbies to the impact your injuries have had on your relationships with family, friends, and co-workers. It certainly takes into account the type of injuries suffered, the type of treatment sought, and the permanency of injuries, among other factors.

Quality of Life

Quality of life is a noneconomic loss. It means your well-being and ability to enjoy your life as you used to have been negatively impacted by the car accident.

As an example, you can be compensated for loss of consortium, which means you’re no longer able to connect with your family on a personal and emotional level due to a back and neck injury or emotional distress caused by the accident. While loss of consortium is typically for married couples, in Washington State, parents are allowed to pursue compensation for a loss of consortium claim if their children were injured in a car accident.

Insurance Policies

Even the best insurance policies have limits, and it’s possible that your or the other party’s insurance policies won’t cover the full amount of your car accident settlement.

For example, Washington’s minimum requirement for auto liability insurance is 25/50 10, meaning the most the insurance company has to pay is $25,000 for one person’s injuries, $50,000 for everyone’s injuries, and $10,000 for property damage. Even if your claims exceed these limits, the insurance company does not have to pay anything above the policy limit.

Comparative Fault

Washington State is a comparative fault state, which means that even if you’re partly at fault for the car accident, you can still pursue an injury settlement and costs for property damage. However, you will be assigned a percentage of fault for the accident, and your awarded total will be reduced by that percentage.

An Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help

There’s no average settlement for car accidents, in part because no two car accident cases are alike. While the details of the accident and the emotional and physical injuries may seem similar to your situation, the past doesn’t predict the future and won’t guarantee you receive a similar injury settlement.

Speaking with an experienced personal injury attorney can help you better understand the specifics of your case and the steps you could take to pursue a settlement. The team at Anderson Law Injury Attorneys has over 50 years of experience helping car accident victims navigate settlement claims and pursue the compensation they’re entitled to for their personal injury claim. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation consultation to see if we can assist you.

The information contained on this website is intended for informational purposes only, and is not legal advice. Nothing in this website establishes an attorney-client relationship between us. Different facts can dramatically affect a legal opinion. You should consult an attorney for legal advice that pertains to your personal situation.