Car insurance claims in Connecticut

Connecticut used to run a no-fault scheme and does not any more, and the compilation says so on its own page: sections 38a-365 to 38a-369, which made an owner’s insurer liable for basic reparations benefits, «are repealed, effective January 1, 1994». What is compulsory now is liability cover — the statute still calls it «residual liability insurance», a fossil of the old scheme — and the owner of a vehicle registered here must provide and continuously maintain it throughout the registration period (§ 38a-371(a)(1)). The amounts are not in the insurance title at all: § 38a-335(a) requires every automobile liability policy to carry limits «not less than those specified in subsection (a) of section 14-112», and § 14-112(a) sets 25/50/25 for policies issued or renewed from 1 January 2018.

Sharing the blame reduces the award without ending the claim, up to a point. Contributory negligence «shall not bar recovery … if the negligence was not greater than the combined negligence of the person or persons against whom recovery is sought» (§ 52-572h(b)). Read the comparison carefully: it is against the combined negligence of everyone sued, settled and released persons included, so a claimant who is 40 percent responsible recovers 60 percent even against two defendants at 30 each. A claimant more than half responsible recovers nothing. For crashes on or after 1 October 1987 each defendant pays only its own proportionate share (§ 52-572h(c)), and the claimant’s own percentage is excluded from the denominator of that calculation (§ 52-572h(d)) — it reduces the award once and does not also shrink each share.

The court deadline is two years, and it is the same two years for the car as for the person, running from when the injury is first sustained or discovered, with a three-year repose from the act itself. Connecticut fixes no general deadline for an insurer to acknowledge, decide or pay a motor claim, and the honest thing is to say so: the unfair claim settlement practices subdivision asks only for «reasonable promptness» and a decision «within a reasonable time after proof of loss statements have been completed», and reaches conduct only when committed «with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice» (§ 38a-816(6)). The Insurance Department has adopted no claims-handling timetable regulation, which was established by enumerating every one of the 79 subtitles of Title 38a of the state regulations rather than by failing to find one. What exists instead is narrower and more useful than it sounds. If mediation by the Department’s Consumer Affairs Division fails on a vehicle-damage or third-party property-damage claim where coverage and liability are not in dispute, the dispute goes to compulsory arbitration in which every private passenger insurer must participate (§ 38a-9(b)(1)); the insurer «must pay the claimant the undisputed amount within five (5) business days of the receipt of the notice of arbitration», and if it fails to respond within fourteen calendar days the arbitrator may award against it, payable «within ten (10) business days of the date of the award» (Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 38a-10-3(d)–(e)). The claimant’s own fourteen-calendar-day deadline to return the request form is the hardest item here, because missing it cancels the proceeding automatically.

On cover, uninsured and underinsured motorist protection cannot be removed at all — since 1 January 1994 it defaults to the policy’s own liability limits and may be reduced only by a named insured’s written request on a Commissioner-approved informed-consent form carrying the statute’s own capitalised warning in twelve-point type, never below the § 14-112(a) amounts (§ 38a-336(a)(2)) — and it pays only for bodily injury, not for your own car (Regs. § 38a-334-6(a)). Underinsured motorist conversion coverage, which the insurer must offer for an extra premium, is not reduced by anything the at-fault driver paid (§ 38a-336a(c)). On a total loss the insurer must value the car on the average of at least two approved industry sources, hand over its own calculation, and print in twelve-point type that you may dispute it with the Consumer Affairs Division (§ 38a-353). And on reporting: the section that once required a driver to report a crash, § 14-108, is repealed. What remains is the duty at the scene — stop, assist, and give your name, address, licence and registration number — triggered by any damage to property with no dollar threshold at all, and becoming an immediate police report if you cannot hand those particulars over (§ 14-224(b)(3)). The $1,000 figure a reader may meet is the investigating officer’s trigger for filing a report with the Commissioner of Transportation, not the driver’s (§ 14-108a(a)(2)).