Pain and Suffering Damages: How They Are Calculated and Proven

You were hurt because of someone else’s mistake, and the pain didn’t stop when the bills started. If you’re wondering whether the pain itself counts for anything in a claim, that’s a fair question. It can. Pain and suffering is the legal name for the physical pain and emotional distress an injury causes, and it’s part of what an injury claim, including one from a car accident, can pay for. No formula sets the amount: a jury uses its judgment, and an insurer makes an estimate. The proof in your records drives both, and your state’s rules, your share of the fault and the insurance available can limit what you receive.

Michigan’s rules are in boxes marked “In Michigan,” current as of September 2026.

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What is pain and suffering?

Pain and suffering is money for harm that doesn’t come with a bill: the physical pain of an injury and the emotional distress that goes with it. The law counts it as noneconomic damages, set apart from economic damages such as medical bills and lost pay, which can be added up from receipts (Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute, or LII).

It covers more than physical pain. Michigan’s model civil jury instructions (the standard instructions judges read to jurors, cited as M Civ JI) list five kinds (M Civ JI 50.02):

Emotional harm counts too. Feeling anxious, sad or angry and having trouble concentrating and sleeping are common reactions after a serious accident (National Institute of Mental Health). If they last and interfere with work or relationships, tell your doctor. See also recovering from a car accident, physically and emotionally.

Can you get pain and suffering from a car accident?

Yes. In most states you claim it from the driver who caused the crash, and that driver’s liability insurance usually pays. In a no-fault state, you can claim it only if your injury passes the state’s threshold, unless you kept the full right to sue in a state that lets drivers choose.

Twelve states and Puerto Rico have no-fault auto insurance laws. Their thresholds are described in words or as a dollar amount of medical bills, and in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, drivers can reject the threshold and keep the right to sue (Insurance Information Institute, or Triple-I). No-fault laws cover car crashes, not falls or other injuries.

How is pain and suffering calculated?

There’s no official formula. A jury, or a judge if there’s no jury, sets the amount by weighing the evidence, and an insurer estimates it when it negotiates.

Michigan’s jury instructions put it plainly: “The amount of money to be awarded for certain of these elements of damage cannot be proved in a precise dollar amount. The law leaves such amount to your sound judgment” (M Civ JI 50.01). Because it’s hard to put an economic value on intangible harm such as emotional distress, courts apply those damages inconsistently (LII).

What are the “multiplier” and “per diem” methods?

They’re rules of thumb that show up in online calculators and settlement talks. Neither is a legal rule, and neither has any official basis.

• The multiplier takes the medical bills, sometimes with lost pay, and multiplies them by a number meant to reflect how serious the injury seems. But bills record treatment, not pain, and each person feels pain differently, even when the cause is the same (MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s health site).
• The per diem (Latin for “per day,” LII) puts a dollar value on each day of pain. It assumes every day hurts the same, but pain “may come and go, or it may be constant” (MedlinePlus).

Online calculators run the same arithmetic and can’t see your records, the evidence on fault or the insurance available. See what online settlement calculators and “average” figures get wrong.

How do insurers estimate pain and suffering?

An adjuster works from the claim file: your medical records, your treatment and how long it lasted, and what your doctors expect. Some insurers use software. In a 2010 agreement with one national insurer, state regulators described the program it used, Colossus. It scored an injury from the medical information an adjuster entered, then turned the score into a dollar range for “general damages,” the part of a claim that isn’t medical bills, lost wages or other out-of-pocket costs. Its values were periodically “tuned” to recent settlement data. The regulators didn’t find institutional underpayment of claims, and other insurers’ tools may differ.

The claims process runs on documents: bills add up on their own, but pain has to be shown in records. See how insurance adjusters put a number on an injury claim.

How do juries decide pain and suffering?

Jurors set a fair amount for each kind of harm the evidence proves, using their judgment rather than a formula. Michigan’s model civil jury instructions show what they’re told:

• Fair compensation. Jurors decide the amount “which reasonably, fairly and adequately compensates” the injured person for each element of damage, “taking into account the nature and extent of the injury” (M Civ JI 50.01).
• Evidence, not guesses. Whether each harm was proved is decided “based upon evidence and not upon speculation, guess or conjecture” (M Civ JI 50.01).
• The future, when reasonably certain. Jurors include harm the person is “reasonably certain to sustain in the future” and decide how long it may continue (M Civ JI 50.01).
• Compensation, not punishment. The verdict “must be solely to compensate” the injured person “and not to punish the defendant” (M Civ JI 50.01).
• No sympathy, and arguments aren’t evidence. “Sympathy must not influence your decision” (M Civ JI 3.02). “The lawyers’ statements, commentaries, and arguments are not evidence” (M Civ JI 2.04).

How much is pain and suffering worth after a car accident?

There’s no typical pain and suffering settlement amount, and no reliable average to measure yours against. Settlement terms typically aren’t made part of the public record (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics), and every result reflects one person’s injury, evidence and insurance.

What moves the value:

• How serious the injury is, and how long the pain lasts. An injury that needed surgery, kept you out of work or won’t fully heal generally supports a bigger claim than one that healed in a few weeks (M Civ JI 50.01). Chronic pain, which lasts longer than three months or past the time you should have healed, can affect every part of daily life (MedlinePlus).
• How your days changed: the time with family, the activities and the everyday routines you lost (M Civ JI 50.02).
• The proof, your share of the fault, legal limits and the insurance available, all covered below.

For how pain and suffering fits with bills, lost pay, fees and liens, see how to evaluate what your injury case is worth.

Wondering what your pain and suffering claim could include? Get a free case review. Four quick questions, no cost, no obligation.

How do you prove pain and suffering?

With a record made while it’s happening: your medical records, a pain journal, and testimony from you and the people who see you every day. Pain is personal, so the goal is to make it visible to someone who wasn’t there.

Your medical records

“You are the only one who knows how your pain feels,” MedlinePlus says. Your provider can best measure it by how you report it, and may ask where it hurts, how it feels, when it happens, how it affects your daily life, and to rate it on a scale. Answer fully at every visit, including what you can’t do at work and at home, and mention emotional effects.

Keep going to treatment. You’re expected to use ordinary care to limit your losses, which in Michigan can include seeking and following medical treatment (M Civ JI 53.05, comment), and gaps in care let the other side argue that you weren’t badly hurt. If a symptom shows up days later, get it checked; see delayed injury symptoms after an accident.

A pain journal

Your doctor may ask you to keep a diary of when and what kind of pain you feel each day (National Institute on Aging, or NIA). A few dated lines are enough:

• Your pain from 0 to 10, where 10 is the worst you can imagine (NIA), and where it hurt
• How you slept
• What you couldn’t do or needed help with: work, driving, lifting a child, a hobby
• Appointments, medicines and therapy

Write it the same day and keep it accurate; exaggeration can undercut an honest claim. Add dated photos as injuries, braces and scars change.

Testimony

At a Michigan trial, evidence is “the sworn testimony of the witnesses” plus exhibits (M Civ JI 2.04). That includes your own account, your doctors’ explanation of the injury and what’s ahead, and people who see you every day, such as a spouse or a coworker. Future pain counts only if there’s evidence from which jurors can infer it’s reasonably certain; a doctor’s testimony can supply it, and so can pain that persists (M Civ JI 50.02, note on use and comment). Few injury cases reach a trial (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics), but an adjuster weighs the same proof.

What if you had pain or an injury before?

An old injury doesn’t erase a pain-and-suffering claim. You can be compensated for the added pain and limits the new injury caused, though not for the condition you already had.

Michigan’s jury instructions, for example:

• Aggravation counts. Compensation may be awarded for “the increase of pain and suffering, increased disability, and related expenses arising from aggravation of a preexisting ailment or condition” (M Civ JI 50.04, comment).
• A fragile person is still covered. Being unusually susceptible to injury “will not relieve the defendant from liability” for the harm the negligence caused (M Civ JI 50.10), often called the eggshell skull rule (LII).
• Old and new are separated when possible. If jurors can’t separate them, “the entire amount of plaintiff’s damages must be assessed against the defendant” (M Civ JI 50.11).

Tell your doctors about earlier injuries, so your records show the difference. See how an old back problem affects a herniated disc claim.

What limits pain and suffering damages?

Four things can reduce a pain-and-suffering award or rule it out: a no-fault threshold (above), a damage cap, your share of the fault and the insurance available. Which apply depends on your state and the kind of case.

Caps on pain and suffering

Some states cap noneconomic damages in certain kinds of cases, and the caps, and the cases they cover, differ from state to state.

Your share of the fault

In most states, being partly at fault reduces what you can recover rather than ending the claim. Many states bar recovery once your share reaches 50% or 51%, and a few (Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C.) can bar it for even slight fault (LII).

The insurance available

A claim is usually worth only what can be collected, and for most injury claims that means the at-fault party’s liability insurance, up to its policy limit. Ask early which policies could pay.

What to do next

1. Get medical care, and keep going. Describe your pain and your limits at every visit.
2. Start a pain journal today, and add dated photos as your injuries change.
3. List the people who have seen the change: family, friends, coworkers.
4. Hold off on signing. Don’t sign a release or give the other side’s insurer a recorded statement until you’ve had advice. In Michigan, give your auto insurer written notice of a crash injury within one year, unless it has already paid PIP benefits (MCL 500.3145(1)).
5. Get a free case review, and the fee in writing. Get a free case review, or in Michigan, compare injury lawyers near you. Get any fee agreement in writing.

What waiting can cost

• Your right to sue. In Michigan, most injury lawsuits must be filed within three years of the injury (MCL 600.5805(2)), whether or not the pain has ended: a claim accrues when the wrong is done, “regardless of the time when damage results” (MCL 600.5827).
• Your record of the pain. Notes and photos made now are stronger than memories pieced together months later.
• A release signed too soon. Signing a release essentially gives up your right to sue (LII), so settling early can end the claim before you know how long the pain will last.

What a good outcome looks like

Your medical records, your journal and the people around you tell the same story: what the injury did to your body and your days, and what’s still ahead. Any share of fault put on you matches the evidence. If you settle, the amount reflects your own pain and limits, not a multiplier or someone else’s average. From wondering whether your pain counts to knowing what the law covers, what your records show and what your claim needs.

For the bigger picture, see our guide to personal injury claims.

Updated September 25, 2026

This guide is general information, not legal advice, and laws change. For advice about your situation, talk to a lawyer licensed in your state. Reading this page or contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship.