Truck accident settlement amounts in Minnesota

A crash with a loaded semi rarely leaves the smaller vehicle's occupants unhurt. Across the country, 5,340 people died in large-truck crashes in 2024, and 62 percent of them were riding in a passenger vehicle rather than the truck.¹ In Minnesota, commercial vehicles turn up in roughly one in five traffic deaths, well above their share of the vehicles on the road,² and the state Department of Public Safety tracks that truck data every year in its Crash Facts report.³ If a truck hit you here, the size of any settlement is set by a handful of Minnesota statutes: what your own insurance pays first, whether you can sue at all, how much coverage the trucking company carries, and how long you have to act.

Your no-fault benefits come first, whoever caused it

Minnesota is a no-fault state. Every insured vehicle carries "basic economic loss" benefits, better known as PIP, and they pay your bills first no matter who was at fault. The minimum is $40,000 per person: up to $20,000 for medical and rehabilitation care and a separate $20,000 for wage loss, replacement services, and up to $5,000 in funeral costs.⁴ Lost wages are paid at 85 percent of your gross income, capped at $500 a week.⁴

PIP is not your settlement, though. A truck's medical bills often burn through that $20,000 quickly, and to pursue the trucking company for pain, suffering, and the rest of your losses, your injury has to clear Minnesota's tort threshold. That means more than $4,000 in reasonable medical expenses, or 60 days or more of disability, or a permanent injury, permanent disfigurement, or death.⁵ Serious truck-crash injuries usually clear that bar without trouble. Whatever PIP already paid is then subtracted from your tort recovery so nothing is paid twice.⁵

Why truck settlements run higher than car settlements here

The biggest reason is the insurance behind the vehicle. A private Minnesota driver only has to carry 30/60/10 liability coverage: $30,000 per person, $60,000 per crash, and $10,000 for property.⁶ An interstate for-hire trucking company hauling ordinary freight must carry at least $750,000, and that rises to $1 million for oil and $5 million for many hazardous materials.⁷ Same collision, a very different pool of money.

Truck cases also tend to have more than one defendant. The driver, the motor carrier that employed them, and sometimes a separate broker, shipper, or maintenance contractor can each share the blame. Minnesota builds the federal safety rules into state law: Minn. Stat. § 221.0314 adopts the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR Parts 391, 392, 395, and 396, for carriers operating in the state, covering driver qualifications, hours of service, and vehicle inspection and maintenance.⁸ When a driver runs past the federal 11-hour driving limit or the 14-hour on-duty window,⁹ or the company skipped a required brake inspection, that violation becomes strong evidence of negligence. Minnesota's hands-free law, § 169.475, separately bars any driver from holding a phone while driving, and federal rules bar truckers from it as well.¹⁰

What can shrink or cap your recovery

Minnesota uses modified comparative fault. You can still recover as long as your share of the blame is not greater than the trucking side's; once a jury finds you more at fault than they are, you collect nothing, and any award is cut by your percentage.¹¹ In a truck case with several defendants, your fault is measured against their combined fault, which usually helps an injured person.

Coverage can also run dry. If a small local truck carries thin limits, your own underinsured motorist coverage can fill part of the gap, since every Minnesota vehicle carries at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash in uninsured and underinsured protection.⁶

There is one firm cap to watch for. If the truck belongs to a government body, such as a MnDOT plow, a county truck, or a Metro Transit bus, Minnesota's municipal tort cap limits recovery to $500,000 per claimant and $1.5 million per occurrence.¹² Those claims run on a far shorter clock, too: written notice within 180 days of the crash, or one year for a wrongful-death claim.¹³

Damages Minnesota does not cap

Outside of a claim against the government, Minnesota puts no dollar limit on economic damages such as medical bills and lost future earnings, and none on non-economic damages like pain and the loss of a normal life. A serious truck injury can support a large figure simply because the losses are large and documented.

Punitive damages are separate and much rarer. Minnesota allows them only on clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted with "deliberate disregard for the rights or safety of others," the kind of conduct you see when a driver keeps going while knowingly exhausted or impaired, or a carrier sends an unsafe truck onto the highway.¹⁴ There is no fixed dollar cap, but a judge reviews every award against statutory factors, including how long the misconduct lasted and the defendant's finances.¹⁴ Minnesota also will not let you demand punitive damages in your original complaint. Your lawyer has to file the suit first, then move to add the claim with affidavits showing a prima facie basis for it.¹⁵

The deadline that can erase everything

You generally have six years from the date of the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit in Minnesota, and the same six years to sue over damage to your vehicle.¹⁶ That is longer than most states allow, but a truck case is the wrong one to sit on. Trucks carry electronic logging devices, engine control data, and dashcam video that a carrier is only required to keep for a limited time, and physical evidence at the scene disappears fast. A preservation letter sent early is often what keeps the strongest proof alive. And if a government truck was involved, the 180-day notice deadline controls, not the six-year one.¹³

Getting the number right

No article can quote your settlement, because it turns on your injuries, your medical records, the fault split, and which policies apply. What Minnesota law does is set the frame: no-fault benefits first, a tort threshold to get past, comparative fault as the discount, and a deeper insurance pool on the truck side than on the car side. It is worth talking to an attorney before you give a recorded statement or accept an early offer, and you can start with the thatcarhitme.com legal directory. If you still need the official police report, our Minnesota crash report guide covers how to get it, and if your vehicle lost resale value even after solid repairs, see Minnesota diminished value claims.

This is general information about Minnesota law, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), Fatality Facts: Large trucks (2024 data). https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/large-trucks

2. Minnesota Toward Zero Deaths (Minnesota DPS and MnDOT), Commercial vehicles. https://www.minnesotatzd.org/resources/commercial

3. Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety, Minnesota Motor Vehicle Crash Facts reports. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ots/reports-statistics-and-data/crash-facts-reports

4. Minn. Stat. § 65B.44, Basic economic loss benefits. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/65B.44

5. Minn. Stat. § 65B.51, Deductions from tort recovery; tort threshold for noneconomic loss. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/65B.51

6. Minn. Stat. § 65B.49, Required insurance coverages (minimum liability limits, subd. 3; uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, subd. 3a). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/65B.49

7. 49 CFR § 387.9, Minimum levels of financial responsibility for for-hire motor carriers of property, per FMCSA. https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/safetyplanner/MyFiles/SubSections.aspx?ch=21&sec=60&sub=119

8. Minn. Stat. § 221.0314, Federal motor carrier safety regulations adopted. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/221.0314

9. 49 CFR Part 395, Hours of Service of Drivers (FMCSA). https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/part-395

10. Minn. Stat. § 169.475, Use of wireless communications device. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/169.475

11. Minn. Stat. § 604.01, Comparative fault; effect. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/604.01

12. Minn. Stat. § 466.04, Maximum liability of a municipality. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/466.04

13. Minn. Stat. § 466.05, Notice of claim against a municipality. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/466.05

14. Minn. Stat. § 549.20, Punitive damages. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/549.20

15. Minn. Stat. § 549.191, Procedure for claiming punitive damages. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/549.191

16. Minn. Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1, Various limitations; six years. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/541.05