People search for a calculator because they want a starting point. But in practice, settlement value is usually tied to what the evidence can support in three buckets:
- Economic losses: funeral and related costs, and the financial support the deceased likely would have provided.
- Non-economic losses: the impact on survivors (like loss of guidance/companionship and emotional harm).
- Liability risk: how clearly the other party’s conduct can be shown to have caused the death.
Online tools tend to treat these as neat inputs. Illinois cases are rarely that tidy—especially when the incident involves shared roadway responsibility, disputed medical causation, or multiple contributing factors.


