PDF checklist2 pagesUpdated 2026-08-02
Settlement documentation checklist
A two-page printable listing the records every published valuation method is computed from: the incident report, complete medical records, itemised bills rather than balances, written proof of wage loss, correspondence, and a dated timeline. Plus fourteen per-diem log rows. It measures what is in your folder, never what a claim is worth.
Every method of putting a number on an injury claim starts from the same place: the economic damages figure. Medical bills, projected treatment, wages actually lost. Everything else in the calculation multiplies that figure, which means a gap in the documentation does not merely weaken an argument — it reduces the number the argument is built on.
This checklist is the printed form of the Case File Score on this site, and it is generated from the same list, so the paper and the tool cannot drift apart. The items are ordered the way a folder gets built rather than the way a claim gets argued: the record of what happened, then the photographs, then the medical file, then the money, then the correspondence, then a timeline tying it together.
The second page is a daily log. The per-diem method is computed from a record like this one, and a record written as the days pass carries weight that a reconstruction from memory does not. Even where the multiplier method is used instead, the log is the thing that makes a treatment timeline provable.
What's inside
The complete contents, listed in full — this is not a preview.
- The documentation checklist itself — every item with a one-line explanation of what it establishes and why an adjuster asks for it
- The distinction between an itemised bill and an account statement, which is the single most common gap in an otherwise complete file
- A prompt to write the source beside every figure, so no number in the folder is one you cannot account for later
- A fourteen-row daily log with columns for pain and limitation, missed activity, treatment that day, and where the note came from
- A note on why a daily rate you choose yourself will be questioned, and what makes one defensible
- The reminder that a filing deadline ends a claim regardless of how complete the folder is
Who this is for
- Anyone gathering paperwork after an injury and unsure what a lawyer or an adjuster will ask for
- People who want a defensible economic damages figure before valuing anything
- Anyone preparing for a first consultation who would rather arrive with a folder than a description
Free by email
Settlement documentation checklist
Enter your email and confirm the double opt-in link — the document is sent straight back. You are also added to Change Alerts — one email when a state revises a guideline, cap, or deadline. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Free, no payment and no account. Confirm the double opt-in link and the checklist arrives by email; you are also added to Change Alerts, one message when a state revises a rule this site publishes. Unsubscribe anytime.
Official sources this resource draws on
Calculators that go with it
Case File
A ten-point check of how complete your documentation is — the records, bills, photographs, timeline and deadline that any conversation about a claim starts from. It scores the paperwork, never the claim, and prints as a cover sheet you can take to a consultation.
Pain & Suffering
Work out what the published multiplier and per-diem methods produce from your medical bills, projected treatment and lost wages — then apply your state’s comparative-negligence rule, its damage caps, and its filing deadline. The result is a range, with every step shown and cited.
Car Accident
Estimate a car accident claim the way published consumer-legal literature describes it: economic damages, a severity multiplier or a per-diem figure, then your state’s fault rule and any statutory cap. Outputs a range with the arithmetic shown and the statute behind each adjustment cited.
Educational reference material — not legal, tax, financial, or benefits advice, and not an application or a determination. The agencies linked above decide every actual outcome.