No, they are not the same. Claim is a general term for someone’s legal right to receive compensation for a personal injury. A settlement is the most common way of resolving a claim.
Specifically, a settlement is an agreement between the injured person and the person, company, or agency with legal liability for the person’s injuries. In the agreement, the party with legal liability agrees to pay money to the injured person, and in exchange, the injured person releases the party from any further legal liability (and, if a lawsuit has been filed, agrees to dismiss the lawsuit and not file it again). Once the terms of the settlement have been agreed and carried out, the legal claim ends.
Most (but not all) Carlsbad legal claims involving catastrophic injuries end in a settlement. The ones that do not typically end up in a trial, where they end with a decision by a judge or jury about whether to award damages to the injured person, and if so, how much.