Original Research · The Orlow Firm
What New York City Pays When Someone Is Injured
We analyzed every injury claim the City of New York settled over eight fiscal years. Scroll to see what the numbers reveal.
FY2016–FY2023 · 256,923 claim records
Total paid by the City
Across 63,918 settled claims, New York City paid out roughly five billion dollars in injury settlements between fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2023.
Median personal injury settlement
Half of all City-paid personal injury settlements came in below $12,000. The average was far higher, at $76,863, pulled up by a handful of catastrophic payouts.
Settlement rate
Of 193,005 claims filed against the City, about 33.1% resulted in a monetary payout. The rest were withdrawn, denied, or remain unresolved.
The biggest public picture of New York injury payouts
Most injury settlements never become public: private-defendant cases are confidential. But every claim paid by New York City is reported to the Comptroller. We pulled the full record, merged a decade of inconsistent claim-type labels, and computed the medians, averages, and trends below. The result is the broadest public view of what the City of New York pays to settle injury claims — one of two windows on injury value in New York, and the lower one.
Read this in context: These figures are what the City of New York paid to settle claims — a floor, held down by the large volume of minor municipal claims. What juries award and courts approve against private defendants runs far higher. Our New York court verdicts report covers that other end. Read together, they bracket the real range of injury compensation in New York.
$4,997,471,955
Total paid by NYC, FY2016-2023
63,918
Claims settled with a payout
$12,000
Median personal injury settlement
Geography
Payouts by borough
Hover or tap a borough to see its median City-paid injury settlement, claim volume, and total dollars paid.
The eight-year trend
The average payout climbed 70%
All-PI average settlement, FY2016 to FY2023
Average climbed from $62,655 (FY2016) to $106K (FY2023). The median is far lower in every year, because a handful of catastrophic payouts pull the average sharply upward.
Queens spotlight
How Queens compares
Queens median settlement vs. the citywide median, by category. Bars left of center fall below the citywide figure; bars right run above it.
- All Personal InjuryQueens $7,500 vs $12,000 citywide-37.5%
- Medical MalpracticeQueens $250K vs $185K citywide+35.1%
- Premises — ParksQueens $20,000 vs $45,000 citywide-55.6%
- Defective SidewalkQueens $25,000 vs $35,000 citywide-28.6%
- Premises — School / PropertyQueens $20,000 vs $30,000 citywide-33.3%
- Civil RightsQueens $20,000 vs $18,500 citywide+8.1%
- Police ActionQueens $12,500 vs $17,500 citywide-28.6%
- Trip / Slip on RoadwayQueens $3,020 vs $10,000 citywide-69.8%
- Correction FacilityQueens $5,000 vs $7,000 citywide-28.6%
- Motor Vehicle / AutoQueens $3,500 vs $3,459 citywide+1.2%
The full dataset
Explore every payout
60 of 60 rows
| Medical Malpractice | Queens | 142 | $250K | $568K | $81M |
| Medical Malpractice | Brooklyn | 367 | $200K | $563K | $207M |
| Medical Malpractice | Bronx | 340 | $191K | $451K | $153M |
| Medical Malpractice | Citywide | 1,208 | $185K | $494K | $596M |
| Medical Malpractice | Manhattan | 256 | $150K | $462K | $118M |
| Premises — Parks | Bronx | 113 | $75,000 | $142K | $16M |
| Medical Malpractice | Staten Island | 3 | $70,000 | $57,067 | $171K |
| Premises — Parks | Manhattan | 174 | $50,000 | $152K | $26M |
| Defective Sidewalk | Bronx | 824 | $50,000 | $125K | $103M |
| Premises — Parks | Citywide | 709 | $45,000 | $112K | $79M |
| Premises — Parks | Brooklyn | 225 | $40,000 | $94,419 | $21M |
| Premises — Parks | Staten Island | 75 | $35,000 | $78,340 | $5.9M |
| Defective Sidewalk | Citywide | 4,417 | $35,000 | $89,572 | $396M |
| Defective Sidewalk | Manhattan | 837 | $35,000 | $97,700 | $82M |
| Premises — School / Property | Bronx | 681 | $35,000 | $126K | $86M |
| Defective Sidewalk | Brooklyn | 1,380 | $30,000 | $85,926 | $119M |
| Premises — School / Property | Citywide | 2,669 | $30,000 | $149K | $397M |
| Premises — School / Property | Brooklyn | 716 | $30,000 | $157K | $112M |
| Defective Sidewalk | Staten Island | 430 | $26,500 | $63,912 | $27M |
| Defective Sidewalk | Queens | 908 | $25,000 | $67,918 | $62M |
| Premises — School / Property | Manhattan | 496 | $25,000 | $212K | $105M |
| Premises — School / Property | Staten Island | 237 | $25,000 | $132K | $31M |
| Trip / Slip on Roadway | Bronx | 345 | $25,000 | $109K | $38M |
| Premises — Parks | Queens | 108 | $20,000 | $85,214 | $9.2M |
| Premises — School / Property | Queens | 464 | $20,000 | $96,987 | $45M |
| Civil Rights | Manhattan | 1,025 | $20,000 | $105K | $108M |
| Civil Rights | Queens | 482 | $20,000 | $157K | $76M |
| Civil Rights | Staten Island | 194 | $20,000 | $95,071 | $18M |
| Police Action | Bronx | 7,699 | $20,000 | $40,963 | $315M |
| Civil Rights | Citywide | 5,891 | $18,500 | $158K | $933M |
| Civil Rights | Bronx | 1,087 | $17,500 | $235K | $255M |
| Police Action | Citywide | 17,991 | $17,500 | $43,554 | $784M |
| Trip / Slip on Roadway | Manhattan | 810 | $17,500 | $107K | $87M |
| All Personal Injury | Bronx | 19,891 | $15,000 | $65,204 | $1.3B |
| Civil Rights | Brooklyn | 1,545 | $15,000 | $136K | $210M |
| Police Action | Brooklyn | 5,142 | $15,000 | $48,087 | $247M |
| Police Action | Manhattan | 2,936 | $15,000 | $41,126 | $121M |
| Police Action | Staten Island | 305 | $14,000 | $52,245 | $16M |
| All Personal Injury | Brooklyn | 15,304 | $12,500 | $90,847 | $1.4B |
| Police Action | Queens | 1,449 | $12,500 | $38,441 | $56M |
| All Personal Injury | Citywide | 60,800 | $12,000 | $76,863 | $4.7B |
| All Personal Injury | Manhattan | 10,354 | $10,000 | $83,354 | $863M |
| Trip / Slip on Roadway | Citywide | 2,700 | $10,000 | $103K | $278M |
| Trip / Slip on Roadway | Brooklyn | 657 | $10,000 | $148K | $97M |
| All Personal Injury | Staten Island | 2,459 | $9,000 | $65,083 | $160M |
| All Personal Injury | Queens | 8,638 | $7,500 | $65,706 | $568M |
| Correction Facility | Bronx | 6,212 | $7,500 | $21,501 | $134M |
| Correction Facility | Brooklyn | 536 | $7,250 | $12,711 | $6.8M |
| Correction Facility | Citywide | 8,354 | $7,000 | $20,604 | $172M |
| Correction Facility | Manhattan | 686 | $6,000 | $19,000 | $13M |
| Correction Facility | Queens | 804 | $5,000 | $18,395 | $15M |
| Motor Vehicle / Auto | Bronx | 2,584 | $3,832 | $75,930 | $196M |
| Motor Vehicle / Auto | Brooklyn | 4,732 | $3,758 | $78,272 | $370M |
| Trip / Slip on Roadway | Staten Island | 273 | $3,500 | $49,765 | $14M |
| Correction Facility | Staten Island | 8 | $3,500 | $22,063 | $177K |
| Motor Vehicle / Auto | Queens | 3,723 | $3,500 | $49,802 | $185M |
| Motor Vehicle / Auto | Citywide | 16,793 | $3,459 | $61,453 | $1.0B |
| Motor Vehicle / Auto | Staten Island | 933 | $3,394 | $50,478 | $47M |
| Trip / Slip on Roadway | Queens | 551 | $3,020 | $70,687 | $39M |
| Motor Vehicle / Auto | Manhattan | 3,125 | $3,000 | $64,847 | $203M |
Median is the most representative figure; averages are skewed upward by rare catastrophic payouts. Citywide rows include claims with no borough recorded, so citywide counts can exceed the sum of the five boroughs.
What stood out
Findings
$185K
Medical malpractice commands the highest median
Municipal hospital (H+H) malpractice claims had the highest median of any category at $185K, on just 1,208 settled payouts. Low volume, very high value.
17,991
Police action is the highest-volume category
Police-action claims produced more settled payouts than any other personal injury category, at a median of $17,500.
$3,459
Motor vehicle medians are strikingly low
Across 16,793 City-vehicle collision payouts, the median was only $3,459 even as the largest single payout reached $11M.
$740M
Payouts peaked in the most recent year
Annual City injury payouts rose from $591M in FY2016 to $740M in FY2023, the highest in the period.
How we did it
Methodology & sources
Figures are computed from the NYC Comptroller Claims Report (Settlements & Claims Filed), covering New York City fiscal years 2016 through 2023 (256,923 claim records). The City fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30, so FY2023 spans July 2022 to June 2023.
We restricted the analysis to claims settled with a payout greater than zero. Medians and percentiles were computed directly from the underlying records, because the dataset's query API has no median function. Across the decade the dataset used two different naming conventions for the same claim types (Title-Case in earlier years, all-caps later); we merged those variants so each category is complete.
Borough-level statistics exclude records with no borough recorded or with non-NYC values, which is why citywide totals can exceed the sum of the five boroughs.
Important caveat
These figures represent claims settled and paid by the City of New York only. Private-defendant settlements, such as a negligent property owner's insurer settling a claim, are confidential and are not reflected here. The median is the most representative measure; averages are skewed upward by rare catastrophic payouts. No inflation adjustment has been applied.
Source: NYC Comptroller Claims Report — Settlements & Claims Filed (FY2016-FY2023). Analysis by The Orlow Firm, 2026-06-20.
Have questions about an injury claim in New York?
These figures describe City-paid claims, not the value of any individual case. If you were hurt and want to understand your options, The Orlow Firm offers a free, no-obligation consultation. Serving Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Long Island since 1981.
Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. This page is informational research and does not constitute legal advice.
