Car insurance claims in Massachusetts

Massachusetts pays the first layer of every crash injury through personal injury protection, without asking who was at fault. Section 34A of chapter 90 defines the cover: at least $8,000 per person for reasonable medical, surgical, x-ray, dental, ambulance, hospital, nursing and funeral expenses incurred within two years of the accident, plus lost wages capped so that the payment and any employer continuation programme together reach seventy-five percent of the person’s average weekly wage. Section 34M makes the cover compulsory in every Massachusetts motor policy and says the benefits are «granted in lieu of damages otherwise recoverable by the injured person or persons in tort». The tort exemption it creates reaches exactly as far as PIP benefits are payable and no further, and § 34M states in terms that «No such exemption from tort liability shall apply in the case of an accident occurring outside the commonwealth» — so the same collision is handled one way inside the state and another way across the New Hampshire line. The section was amended with effect from 24 February 2026, and the amended text is the one described here.

The claim mechanics are written into the statute rather than left to the policy, and they cut both ways. The claimant must present the PIP claim as soon as practicable and in every case within two years of the accident, with a written description of the injuries, the treatment received and the treatment contemplated; refusing the insurer’s medical examination or its request for records is a defence the insurer may raise. Against that, once a licensed physician notifies disability the insurer has ten days to commence medical payments or to give written notice of why it will not, specifying its reasons. Benefits unpaid for more than thirty days make the unpaid party a party to a contract with the insurer, with a right to sue in contract and, on any recovery, costs and reasonable attorney’s fees assessed against the insurer (all c. 90, § 34M). The statute counts in plain days here, not business days.

Suing the other driver for pain and suffering means clearing § 6D of chapter 231: qualifying medical expense in excess of two thousand dollars, or one of five named categories — death, loss of a body member, permanent and serious disfigurement, the losses of sight or hearing listed in c. 152, § 36, or a fracture. One trap for anyone reading the statutes side by side: § 34M still carries a stale cross-reference to a five-hundred-dollar threshold, and § 6D is the section that actually states the threshold, so two thousand dollars is the figure. Shared fault then follows § 85 of the same chapter, which preserves recovery while the claimant’s negligence is not greater than the defendants’ combined negligence and reduces damages in proportion, so the bar falls above fifty percent. The court deadline is three years from accrual for an action of tort, and Massachusetts does not split the vehicle clock from the injury clock (c. 260, §§ 2A and 4). An action on the policy as a contract runs six years (§ 2), though the policy’s own suit clause will usually be shorter.

Three practical things. First, the limits moved: St. 2024, c. 275 raised bodily injury liability to not less than $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident and property damage liability from $5,000 to $30,000, for policies issued or renewed on or after 1 July 2025. Second, the clocks on a damaged car are short and counted in business days — an appraiser assigned within two business days of an oral or written claim unless the loss net of deductible is under $1,500, the appraisal transmitted within five, a supplement inspected within three and answered within two (212 CMR 2.04) — while on a third-party property damage demand the insurer owes a written decision within fifteen working days and, once a completed-work claim form arrives, payment within seven days, with double damages plus costs and fees where a court finds the refusal unreasonable (c. 90, § 34O). The companion regulation, 211 CMR 133.00, sets repair and valuation standards and fixes no day count at all, so cite 212 CMR for any deadline. Third, chapter 176D, § 3(9) lists the unfair claim settlement practices but names no number of days anywhere in the list; it is enforced privately through chapter 93A, and § 9(3) requires a written demand for relief mailed or delivered at least thirty days before filing. That letter is the step most often skipped, and skipping it forfeits the two-to-three-times multiplier a willful violation or a bad-faith refusal would otherwise carry. Uninsured motorist cover is compulsory, with no rejection route, and reaches hit-and-run drivers and an insolvent liability insurer; underinsured cover is an election the insurer must offer and the policyholder may decline (c. 175, § 113L). The compulsory uninsured-motorist floor is set there by a cross-reference to the limits prescribed for a liability policy «under this chapter» — chapter 175, while the $25,000 and $50,000 figures sit in chapter 90 — and the limit that cross-reference sets could not be resolved against a primary text and is not stated here. Finally, any crash killing or injuring anyone, or causing more than $1,000 of damage to any one vehicle or other property, must be reported in writing to the Registrar within five days, with a copy to the police department for the road where it happened (c. 90, § 26); licence suspension is the sanction.