Korea Traffic Injury Grade Classification Calculator
Match documented injuries to Korea Annex 1, review treatment and child adjustments, combine eligible injuries and dental limits, and compare the insurer-reported grade.
1. Accident and notified grade
Fracture adjustments under age 13 need growth-plate information. Verified accident-date scope: 2026-09-15 ~ 2026-11-07. Dates outside this scope are held for rule-version review.
2. Documented injuries and conditions
Do not split bilateral injuries, fracture-dislocations or concurrent cruciate-ligament injuries already covered by a single clause. The most severe item in a shared group is used.
3. Separate dental-prosthesis allowance
Trauma and dental limits are added up to KRW 30,000,000. Tooth counts do not alter the trauma grade or authorize adding consolation amounts.
Classification evidence and next checks
On hold before input. Enter the accident date, age and documented injury to review the required conditions and estimated grade.
Which injury grade matches an existing Korean medical record?
This traffic accident injury grade calculator compares an existing diagnosis and treatment record with Annex 1 of Korea’s Enforcement Decree of the Guarantee of Automobile Accident Compensation Act. Select the applicable injury clauses and documented treatment facts to see an estimated grade, clause references and adjustment reasons. A victim or family member can use the breakdown to prepare questions about the grade reported by an insurer.
An estimate under Korean rules
The result is an estimated Annex 1 injury grade, not a medical diagnosis or a binding decision by an insurer or court. Do not select a more serious injury because its name looks similar, and do not select an operation that was not performed. Use the existing records to check the relevant conditions.
Jurisdiction, rule year and scope
This tool uses Korean rules for 2026, checked on . The verified decree took effect on : MST 289683, statute ID 004594 and Presidential Decree No. 36689. Annex 1 has annex ID 18451655 and its own amendment date of . The decree’s effective date and the annex’s amendment date describe different things; do not assume that today’s verified edition governs every older accident.
Included
Annex 1 injury clauses, regional detailed guidelines, eligible multiple-injury combinations and dental prosthetic cap addition. Clause references preserve the Korean statutory basis.
Separate systems
Permanent disability under Annex 2, occupational accident disability ratings, criminal-law serious injury and fixed driver-insurance benefits use separate rules. This page does not determine those outcomes.
Records and input meanings
Accident date and age: use completed years of age on the accident date, rather than current age. The child threshold is under 13, with specific exceptions described below.
Diagnosis, imaging and operation records: check the exact location, left or right side, fracture with dislocation, complete or partial tear, and treatment actually performed. Hospital admission alone does not establish that surgery occurred.
Brain injury evidence: check the timing of the Glasgow Coma Scale assessment, consciousness state, duration of neurological symptoms and surgery. Do not guess an unknown GCS score.
Dental plan and insurer notification: count teeth requiring prosthetic treatment and keep the insurer’s reported grade and clause explanation. A broken tooth diagnosis alone does not prove every affected tooth needs a prosthesis.
No diagnosis document upload is needed. Enter only the facts needed for the calculation, and ask the hospital whether an actually performed procedure is accurately recorded if a relevant detail appears to be missing.
How to use the clause-based classification
Enter age at the accident and the applicable date, then find the injury recorded in the diagnosis. Read every condition in the clause, including surgery, duration and injury extent.
Identify separate injuries and remove repeated descriptions of the same bone or joint injury. Do not treat two names for one injury as two independent injuries.
Apply only the detailed guidelines supported by the relevant records. Child, conservative-treatment, nerve-injury and flap/graft conditions must relate to that specific injury.
Read the individual grades, combination reasons and dental cap addition before comparing the insurer’s grade. Use differences to prepare a request for explanation or review.
Catch-all clauses referring to other injuries considered equivalent to a grade require professional assessment and are not automatically classified. An unresolved clause or missing essential condition should remain a needs-review result, rather than a confident grade inferred from an approximate name.
Combining independent injuries: the three-grade window
Common guideline (a)
For multiple injuries within grades 2–11, the relevant additional injury must fall within three lower grades of the highest injury to apply the amount for one higher grade. A smaller grade number is more severe: grade 5 is within three lower grades of grade 2. The presence of two diagnosis names alone does not meet the combination rule.
Within the window
After individual adjustments and duplicate exclusions, independent grade 2 and grade 5 injuries qualify for the grade 1 amount: a KRW 30,000,000 cap. Do not add a second combination for bilateral or combined injuries already included in one clause.
Outside the window
Grade 2 plus grade 6 is outside the three-grade window. Two grade 12 injuries, or grade 11 plus grade 12, do not form a qualifying pair of injuries within grades 2–11.
The limb guidelines generally exclude combining injuries of the same bone or joint and use the higher applicable injury. Specific knee ligament and meniscus combinations have their own provisions, so anatomical relationships and the exact exception require record-based review.
Apply the largest adjustment once in each direction
Common guideline (c) prevents repeatedly adding adjustments in the same direction for one injury. If downward factors of one and two grades apply, use the larger two-grade reduction rather than adding them to make three. When upward and downward factors coexist, its proviso selects the largest upward and largest downward factors and reflects both. The phrase once only does not mean an opposite-direction factor can simply be discarded.
Avoid adjusting an already specific clause twice
If the selected clause already expressly describes non-surgical treatment, do not add another general non-surgical reduction for the same fact. The same caution applies to clauses already specifying surgery or replantation. Common guideline (e) addresses severe soft-tissue injury requiring flap surgery or skin grafting: one grade higher for the face, or one grade lower for injury confined to a hand or foot. Simple wound suturing is not skin grafting.
Brain injury, GCS and documented consciousness
Severe
GCS 8 or below. Recorded coma or semicoma corresponds to this category.
Moderate
GCS 9–12. Recorded stupor corresponds to this category.
Mild
GCS 13–15. Recorded drowsiness corresponds to this category.
The guidelines generally require assessment before sedation and identify an exception involving intubation in a conscious patient. Check the relevant injury clause’s 48-hour neurological symptom condition and surgery requirement as well. A GCS score does not itself diagnose a brain injury. For grades 4–14, documented cranial nerve injury or focal neurological findings beyond consciousness may permit one upward grade under head guideline (b); do not infer these findings from the score. For non-brain-injury clauses such as concussion or scalp injury, additional findings remain subject to separate assessment rather than an automatic upgrade.
Acute stress disorder conditions
Grade 12 clause 1 has a guideline requiring an isolated injury or disease, with no other diagnosis, and onset within one month after trauma. Feeling anxious after an accident does not itself establish the diagnosis, and the tool does not combine it with another injury to increase a grade.
All three cardiac-contusion categories
Grade 6 clause 4 requires the guideline’s three categories: an ECG finding of tachyarrhythmia, ST change or arrhythmia; increased pericardial fluid or reduced wall motion on echocardiography; and increased cardiac enzymes CPK-MB and Troponin T. Do not assume that one test satisfies the complete condition; compare the full medical record.
Children, limbs and spinal injuries
Under age 13
The child definition uses age at the accident. The limb guideline generally rates a child’s fracture one grade lower than the same adult fracture, but growth-plate injury and soft-tissue injury use the adult grade. Age does not automatically lower every injury.
Treatment-specific changes
Where no separate grade is provided, conservative fracture care can mean two grades lower, while closed reduction with percutaneous pin fixation can mean one lower. Conservatively treated major-joint fracture-dislocation has a three-grade reduction provision. Use the applicable larger adjustment without counting the same fact twice.
External fixation counts as surgery under the limb guidelines. Open fracture and major peripheral nerve injury have separate conditions; a partial tear treated conservatively is not automatically equivalent to a surgically treated tear. The spinal guidelines identify grade 9 for spinal stenosis or disc herniation whose symptoms arise or worsen from trauma, and for specified radiculopathy or sensory disturbance after spinal injury. Simple spinal sprain is Annex 1 grade 12, clause 3; longer treatment alone does not change it to grade 9.
Dental prosthetic tooth counts and cap addition
Use the number of teeth requiring prosthetic treatment in the dental treatment plan. One tooth corresponds to grade 14; 2–3 to grade 13; 4–5 to grade 12; 6–8 to grade 11; 9–10 to grade 10; 11–12 to grade 9; 13–15 to grade 8; 16–18 to grade 7; 19–22 to grade 6; and 23 or more to grade 5. Zero means no dental prosthetic injury input, not an additional grade 14 cap.
Common guideline (b)
Combined cap = min(KRW 30,000,000, general-trauma cap + dental prosthetic cap)
This adds amounts without increasing or averaging the general injury grade. Do not enter the same dental injury both as a prosthetic clause and as an additional tooth-count amount. The cap-addition provision does not establish automatic addition of consolation benefits or accident points.
Grades 1–14: liability injury caps and policy consolation
Article 3(1)(2) and Annex 1 set injury liability limits, with the statutory provisions on actual loss and medical expense amounts. These are caps, rather than fixed benefits automatically paid in full once a grade is known. The consolation column is the motor policy injury reference, not court-awarded damages or the total settlement. All amounts below are Korean won.
Korean Annex 1 injury liability caps and motor policy injury consolation references verified for 2026, in KRW
Injury grade
Liability cap (KRW)
Consolation (KRW)
Grade 1
30,000,000
2,000,000
Grade 2
15,000,000
1,760,000
Grade 3
12,000,000
1,520,000
Grade 4
10,000,000
1,280,000
Grade 5
9,000,000
750,000
Grade 6
7,000,000
500,000
Grade 7
5,000,000
400,000
Grade 8
3,000,000
300,000
Grade 9
2,400,000
250,000
Grade 10
2,000,000
200,000
Grade 11
1,600,000
200,000
Grade 12
1,200,000
150,000
Grade 13
800,000
150,000
Grade 14
500,000
150,000
Worked examples: grades and money are different outputs
Spinal sprain alone
An adult spinal sprain under grade 12 clause 3 has a KRW 1,200,000 liability cap and a KRW 150,000 policy consolation reference. Hospital days, outpatient visits and treatment weeks do not independently change the grade.
Spinal sprain plus one prosthetic tooth
Add the grade 12 general-trauma cap of KRW 1,200,000 to the one-tooth grade 14 cap of KRW 500,000: KRW 1,700,000 combined. General trauma remains grade 12; the combined amount is not converted to a new grade.
Independent grades 2 and 5
After individual adjustments and duplicate exclusions, a qualifying grade 2 plus grade 5 combination uses the grade 1 amount: KRW 30,000,000. The cap does not guarantee a payment equal to that amount.
Grade 1 plus dental treatment
Adding a dental prosthetic cap to a general-trauma cap already at KRW 30,000,000 does not raise the combined Annex 1 cap above KRW 30,000,000. Do not interpret this as a limit on all liability coverage or every personally purchased benefit.
What to do when the insurer reports a different grade
First check the inputs: an operation mistakenly selected for conservative care, repeated descriptions of one injury, a missing symptom-duration condition, or a growth-plate exception can explain a difference. Then collect the Annex 1 grade and clause references and the adjustment breakdown, and ask the claims handler which provisions were used. A difference in reference amounts identifies a question for review; it is not a confirmed additional payment.
Check whether an actually performed operation or procedure is accurately documented. Do not seek a diagnosis change merely to obtain another grade.
Ask about same-bone or same-joint combination exclusions and the separate dental addition.
Grades 12–14 are the minor-injury category used in the treatment framework. Grades 1–11 do not automatically establish criminal-law serious injury or guaranteed future-treatment payment.
Drivers should confirm accident-rating points and renewal premiums with the insurer. The injury grade alone does not determine a premium increase percentage.
Total settlement, permanent disability and uninsured-vehicle compensation have separate tools. This page does not schedule treatment reviews or decide when treatment or settlement should end.
Frequently asked questions
Does two weeks of treatment always mean grade 12?
No. Match the recorded injury and the clause conditions. Simple spinal sprain is grade 12 clause 3, but treatment weeks alone do not create a grade.
Do two diagnoses always raise the grade?
No. Check grades 2–11, the three-grade window, independent injuries and exclusions. Two grade 12 injuries do not satisfy common guideline (a).
Does combination mean changing the medical diagnosis?
No. It is a statutory method of applying an amount. The tool compares recorded injuries and does not recommend changing a diagnosis or treatment.
Is every injury lowered for a 12-year-old?
No. The child limb-fracture rule has growth-plate and soft-tissue exceptions. Age alone does not lower every injury.
Does GCS 15 establish a grade 5 brain injury?
No. A brain injury diagnosis and the applicable duration, surgery and consciousness conditions must also be verified. The score alone is insufficient.
Does adding dental teeth increase the general grade?
No. Common guideline (b) adds the applicable amounts, capped at KRW 30,000,000. It does not change the general-trauma grade based on tooth count.
Will I receive the cap and consolation as cash?
Not automatically. Proven loss, medical costs, fault, prior payments, coverage and policy terms affect payment. Do not add the table columns to estimate a settlement.
Can I select the nearest injury when mine is missing?
Do not substitute an injury with different conditions. Catch-all provisions and unverified facts require assessment by the relevant insurer or medical professional.
Official sources and updates
The current-edition status, Article 3, all Annex 1 clauses and the detailed guidelines were checked through the National Law Information OPEN API on November 7, 2026. The verified decree edition took effect on September 15, 2026. Recheck annex amendments, policy payment rules and insurer rating systems when applying the result to a real claim.
Select injuries matching the records above, review the estimated grade and combination reasons, and leave uncertain facts unresolved until they can be checked. Compare the record of treatment actually performed with the insurer’s clause explanation.