Truck Accident Settlement Amounts in New Hampshire

There's no average truck accident settlement in New Hampshire, and any site that quotes you one number is guessing. What a crash with a tractor-trailer is actually worth here comes down to two things: the state rules that decide whether you can recover and how much your own fault costs you, and the far larger insurance that sits behind a commercial truck. A car that hits you in Manchester might carry the state minimum of $25,000. The 18-wheeler behind you has to carry at least $750,000.

The 3-year deadline that decides whether there's a settlement at all

Every New Hampshire injury claim runs on a clock. Under RSA 508:4, I, you have three years from the date of the crash to bring a personal action for injury or property damage.¹ Miss it and the claim is gone, no matter how badly you were hurt or how clearly the trucker was at fault. There is a narrow discovery exception: if you couldn't reasonably have known about the injury or its cause at the time, the three years runs from when you should have discovered it.¹ For most truck crashes the injuries show up the same day, so plan around the crash date. Insurers track the deadline too, and a carrier that senses you're near it has little reason to pay full value.

New Hampshire caps none of your damages, but it won't add punitive damages

Here the state works in your favor. New Hampshire sets no dollar limit on compensatory damages in an ordinary injury case, so there is no ceiling on your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering the way some states impose one. The state tried a cap once, a $250,000 limit on noneconomic damages in medical cases, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court struck it down as a violation of equal protection in Carson v. Maurer in 1980.² It was never replaced.

The limit runs the other direction. New Hampshire bars punitive damages across the board. RSA 507:16 states that no punitive damages may be awarded in any action unless another statute specifically allows them.³ So even when a trucking company's conduct is genuinely reckless, say a driver falsifying logs to run 16 hours straight, you can't add a separate punitive award on top. The misconduct still matters. It raises the value of your compensatory claim and your bargaining position, it just isn't its own line item.

How much your own fault costs you

New Hampshire uses modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar, set out in RSA 507:7-d. You can recover as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the combined fault of everyone you're suing, and your award is cut by your own percentage.⁴ If a jury values your case at $500,000 and finds you 20 percent responsible, you collect $400,000. Reach 51 percent and you recover nothing.

Fault is where truck cases are won and lost, because a commercial driver works under federal rules a regular motorist doesn't. An hours-of-service violation, a skipped pre-trip inspection, or a maintenance defect the carrier knew about can move fault onto the company and off you. Those records exist because federal law requires them, which is part of why truck claims settle differently from fender benders.

Why a truck claim is worth more than a car claim here

The biggest reason truck settlements outrun car settlements in New Hampshire is the insurance behind the vehicle. New Hampshire's minimum auto liability limits are just 25/50/25 under RSA 264:20: $25,000 per injured person, $50,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage.⁵ Against a serious injury, that can vanish in a single hospital stay.

Interstate trucks answer to federal law instead. Under 49 CFR 387.9, a for-hire carrier hauling ordinary freight in a vehicle over 10,001 pounds must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. Haul oil or listed hazardous materials and the floor rises to $1,000,000; haul certain explosives or poison gases and it reaches $5,000,000.⁶ Many large carriers and freight brokers require a $1,000,000 policy as a condition of doing business. That coverage, backed by the federal MCS-90 endorsement that guarantees payment to the public, is the pool your settlement is actually paid from. It's the main reason the same injuries can be worth many times more when a truck is involved.

The federal safety rules that build your case

Federal hours-of-service limits give a truck claim evidence a car crash rarely has. Under 49 CFR 395.3, a property-carrying driver may drive no more than 11 hours after 10 hours off duty, can't drive past the 14th hour of a shift, and is capped at 60 hours in 7 days or 70 in 8.⁷ Electronic logging devices record all of it. When those logs show a driver over hours, they prove negligence and can pull the motor carrier in as a defendant for pushing an illegal schedule. This data can be overwritten within months, so getting a preservation letter to the carrier quickly affects the size of any eventual settlement.

The coverage on your own policy that adds to the number

Two New Hampshire coverages can lift your recovery before you even reach the trucking company. Every policy issued in the state must include uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage equal to your own liability limits, unless you rejected it in writing, under RSA 264:15.⁸ If the truck's coverage somehow can't make you whole, or a hit-and-run rig is never identified, your UM/UIM steps in.

Every New Hampshire auto policy also carries at least $1,000 in medical payments coverage under RSA 264:16, which pays reasonable medical costs from the crash for up to three years regardless of fault.⁹ It's modest, but RSA 264:17 makes it non-subrogable, so your own insurer can't take it back out of your settlement.¹⁰ That money stays yours on top of what you collect from the trucking company.

If alcohol was involved, New Hampshire's dram shop law can add a defendant. Under RSA chapter 507-F, a licensed server that negligently served a visibly intoxicated person or a minor, or that served recklessly, can be sued by someone the drunk driver later injures.¹¹

New Hampshire truck crashes in context

Truck crashes are relatively rare on New Hampshire roads, which is part of why the local numbers matter. New Hampshire recorded 130 traffic deaths in 2023.¹² Large trucks were about 5 percent of the vehicles involved in the state's fatal crashes that year, roughly 9 of 189, against 9 percent nationally.¹² Rare, but rarely minor. A loaded tractor-trailer can weigh more than 20 times what your car does, and the injuries reflect that.

If you're building your case, start with the police crash report. If your vehicle was totaled or badly damaged, its lost resale value may be a separate diminished value claim. And because a truck case pulls in federal regulations and several potential defendants at once, with insurers that keep defense lawyers on retainer, most people shouldn't handle one alone. You can find a New Hampshire attorney through the legal directory.

This article is general information about New Hampshire law, not legal advice for your situation.

Sources

1. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 508:4, I (personal actions, three-year limitation). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LII/508/508-4.htm

2. Carson v. Maurer, 120 N.H. 925 (1980) (noneconomic damages cap held unconstitutional). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1534241/carson-v-maurer/

3. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 507:16 (no punitive damages unless provided by statute). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LII/507/507-16.htm

4. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 507:7-d (comparative fault). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LII/507/507-7-d.htm

5. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 264:20 (financial responsibility limits). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-20.htm

6. 49 C.F.R. § 387.9 (minimum levels of financial responsibility for motor carriers). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/387.9

7. 49 C.F.R. § 395.3 (hours of service of drivers, property-carrying vehicles). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/395.3

8. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 264:15 (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-15.htm

9. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 264:16 (medical payments coverage). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-16.htm

10. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 264:17 (no subrogation for medical payments). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/264/264-17.htm

11. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. ch. 507-F (alcoholic beverage licensee liability). https://www.gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LII/507-F/507-F-mrg.htm

12. NHTSA, State Traffic Data: 2023 Data, DOT HS 813 743 (Aug. 2025), Tables 6 and 7. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813743