Truck Accident Settlement Amounts in Hawaii

If you're trying to figure out what a truck crash is worth in Hawaii, the honest answer is that no two cases settle for the same figure. What a claim brings here depends on a short list of Hawaii rules: how much insurance sits behind the truck, whether your injuries clear the state's no-fault threshold, how fault gets divided, and whether you file in time. Understand those and you understand your own case better than any online estimate can.

Truck cases usually settle for more than ordinary car crashes, and the main reason is simple. There's normally far more insurance behind the truck.

How much insurance is on the table

Since January 1, 2026, the minimum liability coverage on a private Hawaii vehicle is 40/80/20: $40,000 per person and $80,000 per accident for bodily injury, plus $20,000 for property damage. Those numbers went up from the old 20/40/10 under Act 138 of 2024.¹ For anyone seriously hurt, that state minimum runs out quickly.

Commercial trucks answer to a different rule. A for-hire carrier hauling freight across state lines in a vehicle over 10,001 pounds has to carry at least $750,000 in public liability coverage under federal law. Carriers moving oil or certain hazardous substances must carry $1,000,000, and those hauling explosives or the most dangerous hazardous materials must carry $5,000,000.² The distance between $80,000 and $750,000 is often the single biggest factor in what a Hawaii truck case settles for. More coverage means more room to actually be paid for what happened to you.

One caveat worth knowing: not every truck is a federally regulated interstate carrier. A purely local delivery truck operating only within the islands may carry nothing more than the state minimum. When the at-fault truck is underinsured like that, your own underinsured motorist coverage becomes the backstop, which is one reason it's worth checking whether you kept the UM/UIM coverage your insurer had to offer you.¹

Hawaii's no-fault system and the threshold you have to clear

Hawaii is a no-fault state. Every registered vehicle carries personal injury protection, and your own PIP pays your early medical bills up to at least $10,000 per person regardless of who caused the crash.³ The insurer has 30 days after you send reasonable proof of loss to pay or deny a PIP claim, and anything paid late carries interest at 1.5% per month.⁴

No-fault also controls when you can sue for pain and suffering. To step outside the system and pursue full damages, your case has to involve death, a significant permanent loss of use of a part or function of the body, permanent and serious disfigurement, or PIP benefits that reach $5,000.⁵ In a real truck collision, that $5,000 mark is usually passed with the first hospital stay, so most serious truck claims move forward as full injury cases instead of staying boxed inside PIP.

What limits your recovery, and what doesn't

Hawaii caps pain-and-suffering damages at $375,000 in many types of lawsuits.⁶ That cap does not touch motor vehicle cases. The statute listing the exceptions carves out torts relating to motor vehicle accidents, so a truck-crash victim's noneconomic damages are not held to $375,000.⁷ There's no Hawaii ceiling on what a jury can award for the pain and lasting disability a truck crash leaves behind.

Fault still cuts both ways. Hawaii follows modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar. You can recover as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the other side's, your damages drop by your own percentage, and once your fault passes 50% you recover nothing.⁸ So if the trucking company's investigators can pin part of the blame on you, they will try, because every point they shift lowers what they owe. That is a big reason the evidence sitting inside the truck matters so much.

How a truck settlement can grow

Some truck cases are worth more because of who else can be held responsible. If the driver was impaired or drove with conscious indifference to the danger, punitive damages may be available on top of your actual losses. Hawaii allows them only where clear and convincing evidence shows the defendant acted wantonly, oppressively, or with conscious indifference to the consequences.⁹ Punitive damages are meant to punish, and they can lift a recovery well above the medical bills and lost wages.

Where alcohol is in the picture, a bar or licensed vendor that kept serving a visibly intoxicated driver can be liable too. Hawaii recognized this dram shop claim in Ono v. Applegate, built on the liquor control law's duty not to serve an intoxicated patron.¹⁰ That can put a second insurance policy on the table.

The trucking company itself is frequently a defendant alongside the driver. Federal hours-of-service rules limit a property-carrying driver to 11 hours of driving after 10 hours off duty, inside a 14-hour on-duty window, with weekly caps of 60 or 70 hours.¹¹ When a company pushes a driver past those limits, skips required maintenance, or hires someone it shouldn't have, that conduct can support the liability case and open up the company's larger policy.

The two-year filing deadline

Hawaii gives you two years from the date of the crash to file suit for injury or property damage, both under the same statute.¹² Miss it and the claim is almost always dead, no matter how clear the fault. Two years can feel like a lot, and truck evidence does not wait that long. Electronic logging device data, the engine control module, driver duty logs, and dispatch records can be overwritten or lawfully discarded within months. Getting a preservation letter out early often matters more than the filing date itself.

The official record helps too. Hawaii has no state highway patrol, so your crash report comes from the county police department where the wreck happened, whether that's Honolulu, Hawaii, Maui, or Kauai.¹³ You can see how to request a Hawaii crash report on our Hawaii crash reports page. If your vehicle was totaled or lost resale value, that loss is a separate property claim worth pursuing, covered on our Hawaii diminished value page.

Getting the number right for your case

There is no published average Hawaii truck settlement that means anything for you, and any figure quoted online is someone else's crash. What your case is worth comes down to the coverage available, how your injuries measure against the no-fault threshold, your share of fault, and whether punitive or third-party claims are in play. Hawaii recorded 92 traffic deaths statewide in 2023, and the fatal and catastrophic cases are exactly where the federal coverage minimums and the missing damage cap change the math the most.¹⁴ Someone who regularly handles Hawaii truck cases can line these pieces up against the real insurance behind the truck; you can find an attorney through the legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 431:10C-301 (minimum liability limits and UM/UIM offer, as amended by 2024 Act 138). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol09_Ch0431-0435H/HRS0431/HRS_0431-0010C-0301.htm
49 CFR 387.9, Financial responsibility, minimum levels for for-hire motor carriers of property. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-III/subchapter-B/part-387/subpart-A/section-387.9
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 431:10C-103.5 (personal injury protection benefits, $10,000 per person). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol09_Ch0431-0435H/HRS0431/HRS_0431-0010C-0103_0005.htm
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 431:10C-304 (payment of PIP benefits within 30 days; 1.5% monthly interest on late payments). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol09_Ch0431-0435H/HRS0431/HRS_0431-0010C-0304.htm
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 431:10C-306 (abolition of tort liability and the thresholds for stepping outside no-fault). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol09_Ch0431-0435H/HRS0431/HRS_0431-0010C-0306.htm
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 663-8.7 (pain and suffering limited to $375,000). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol13_Ch0601-0676/HRS0663/HRS_0663-0008_0007.htm
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 663-10.9 (exceptions, including torts relating to motor vehicle accidents). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol13_Ch0601-0676/HRS0663/HRS_0663-0010_0009.htm
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 663-31 (comparative negligence, 51% bar). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol13_Ch0601-0676/HRS0663/HRS_0663-0031.htm
Masaki v. General Motors Corp., 71 Haw. 1, 780 P.2d 566 (1989) (clear and convincing standard for punitive damages). https://law.justia.com/cases/hawaii/supreme-court/1989/13023-2.html
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 281-78 and Ono v. Applegate, 62 Haw. 131, 612 P.2d 533 (1980) (dram shop liability). https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol05_Ch0261-0319/HRS0281/HRS_0281-0078.htm
49 CFR 395.3 (hours of service of drivers, property-carrying commercial motor vehicles). https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-III/subchapter-B/part-395/section-395.3
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 657-7 (two-year limitation for injury and property damage). https://data.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol13_Ch0601-0676/HRS0657/HRS_0657-0007.htm
Honolulu Police Department, Police Reports. https://www.honolulupd.org/police-reports/
Hawaii Department of Transportation, 2023 traffic fatality update (92 statewide fatalities). https://hidot.hawaii.gov/administration/2023-traffic-fatality-update/