Mild TBI / Concussion Settlements in Texas (2026)

This page is reference information, not legal advice. For a moderate mild TBI or concussion case with clear liability in Texas, reported settlements typically range from $51,600 to $120,400, with a midpoint around $86,000. Those numbers assume reasonable treatment, documented symptoms, and a defendant who is clearly at fault. Change any of those inputs and the range shifts — sometimes dramatically.

What Actually Moves the Number

Five factors do most of the work here. They're not equally weighted, and the first one matters more than most people expect.

1. How Well the Injury Is Documented

Mild TBI is notoriously hard to prove because early imaging is often normal. If you have an ER visit within 24 hours, a neuropsychological evaluation showing cognitive deficits, and follow-up notes from a treating physician who used the words "post-concussion syndrome" or "mild traumatic brain injury," your case is worth materially more than one where the plaintiff waited two weeks to see a doctor and has no specialist records. Adjusters and defense lawyers know how to attack a gap in treatment. A documented, continuous care timeline is worth real money — probably $15,000 to $30,000 more in settlement value compared to an otherwise identical case with a three-week gap.

2. Whether You Had Surgery or Specialist Treatment

Most concussion cases don't involve surgery, but neurologist visits, neuropsychological testing, vestibular therapy, and vision therapy all add to your specials and signal severity to the other side. If your medical bills crossed $25,000 and you had documented specialist treatment, the multiplier alone moves you toward the high end of the range.

3. Lost Wages and Earning Capacity

A concussion that kept a salaried professional out of work for eight weeks adds $15,000 to $40,000 in documented economic loss before you even touch pain and suffering. Self-employed claimants have a harder time proving this — not impossible, but it requires tax returns and a credible paper trail. Adjusters discount undocumented wage claims heavily.

4. Liability Clarity

Texas uses a modified comparative negligence rule: if you're found 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. Even below that threshold, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. A rear-end collision where you were stopped at a red light is about as clean as liability gets. A left-turn accident at an uncontrolled intersection is not. Cases with genuine liability disputes routinely settle at 40–60% of what a clean-liability case would bring, because the risk of a defense verdict is real.

5. Where the Case Would Be Filed

Venue matters in Texas more than most states. Harris County (Houston) and Travis County (Austin) juries have historically returned substantial plaintiff verdicts, but the 2003 tort reform climate still shapes how adjusters think about exposure. A case that might demand $150,000 in Harris County might be valued at $100,000 in a smaller, more conservative county. If your case is in a rural venue, expect the insurer to know that and price accordingly.

The Math: How Demand Numbers Are Built

Personal injury attorneys typically build opening demands using a multiplier applied to "specials" — your documented economic losses, primarily medical bills and lost wages. For mild TBI, that multiplier generally runs 6x to 9x of specials, reflecting the non-economic component (pain, cognitive disruption, sleep problems, emotional distress) that doesn't show up in a bill.

Here's a worked example. Say your medical bills total $14,000 and you lost $6,000 in wages. Your specials are $20,000. Apply a 7x multiplier and the opening demand is $140,000. Apply 9x and it's $180,000. Settlements typically land somewhere around 60–70% of the opening demand in a negotiated resolution, which puts actual settlement value in that scenario at roughly $84,000 to $126,000 — right in line with the benchmark range. That's not a coincidence. The benchmark range was built from cases that look roughly like this.

Now push specials to $30,000 with a neurologist and neuropsychological testing. At 7x, the demand opens at $210,000. At 60–70% resolution, you're looking at $126,000 to $147,000 — above the typical high end, but not a wildly different case. The math is transparent once you know the inputs.

Why the Range Is So Wide

$51,600 to $120,400 is a $68,800 spread. That's not vagueness — it reflects real variation in how these cases resolve. The same injury, same accident, same county can produce very different outcomes depending on whether the plaintiff had a treatment gap, whether liability is disputed, whether the insurer is a carrier known for early settlement or one that litigates everything to the courthouse steps, and whether the plaintiff's attorney filed suit or resolved pre-litigation.

Pre-litigation settlements almost always come in below what a litigated case would produce. The insurer knows you haven't paid a filing fee yet. Once a lawsuit is filed and discovery begins — depositions, expert witnesses, the whole machinery — the calculus changes. Cases that settle for $55,000 pre-suit sometimes resolve for $90,000 post-filing, not because anything changed about the injury, but because the cost and risk of trial shifted the insurer's math.

And mild TBI cases specifically carry an inherent credibility problem that widens the range. Symptoms are subjective. Imaging is often clean. Defense experts will say the plaintiff has no objective findings. How well your attorney handles that argument — and how credible you are as a witness — genuinely affects value.

Cases That Land at the Extremes

Some mild TBI cases in Texas settle for $10,000 or less. That happens when treatment was minimal, there's a significant gap in care, liability is genuinely disputed, the plaintiff had prior head injuries, or the insurer simply called the bluff and the plaintiff accepted rather than litigate. These are not rare. Plenty of concussion claims resolve for nuisance value because the case wasn't built to withstand scrutiny.

Cases that push past $200,000 or into seven figures are also real, but they're usually not "mild TBI" cases anymore by the time they settle. Post-concussion syndrome that persists for years, documented cognitive decline, a plaintiff with a high earning capacity whose career was materially affected — those cases are arguing something closer to moderate TBI, and they're priced accordingly. If your symptoms resolved in six to eight weeks and you're back to normal, the $1M verdict you saw on a firm's website is not your reference point.

Lawyers do materially change outcomes on these cases. Not because of magic, but because they know how to document the injury properly, which experts to retain, when to file, and what a fair number actually looks like for your county and carrier. Whether that's worth the contingency fee depends on your specific situation — but the data consistently shows represented claimants recover more, even net of fees, on cases with real injuries.