Arkansas Car Accident Settlement Calculator

Arkansas’s modified comparative fault system creates a bright line at 50%. Below it, you recover (reduced by your fault percentage). At or above it, you recover nothing. In car accident cases, this threshold means that small evidentiary details — a traffic camera, a witness statement, a skid mark analysis — can swing the outcome dramatically.

Arkansas gives you 3 years from the date of the incident to file a lawsuit, which is in line with the national average of 2.7 years. This is a standard timeframe, but acting sooner preserves evidence and strengthens your position. Arkansas applies a discovery rule, meaning the clock may start when you discover (or should have discovered) the injury rather than when the incident occurred.

Arkansas’s mandatory minimum auto insurance is 25/50/25 (bodily injury per person / per accident / property damage). These are relatively low minimums. Medical costs from even a moderate car accident frequently exceed $25K, which means you may need to pursue additional recovery options if the at-fault driver carries only the minimum.

Arkansas lets a vehicle owner recover diminished value, the resale value a properly repaired car loses because of its accident history, from the at-fault driver on top of the cost of repairs. Whether your own collision coverage owes it has no clear Arkansas rule. Arkansas measures damage to a motor vehicle by the difference in the vehicle's value before and after the crash under Ark. Code Ann. Sec. 27-53-401, as the Arkansas Supreme Court applied it in Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Harris Co. (2003). The diminished value guide in the related reading below carries the rule for every state and how to document the loss.