Car insurance claims in Minnesota

Minnesota pays first and argues later. Every owner of a vehicle registered or principally garaged in the state must carry a plan of reparation security providing both no-fault benefits and residual liability cover (§ 65B.48, subd. 1), and the insurer must pay basic economic loss benefits regardless of the fault of the insured (§ 65B.49, subd. 1). The floor is $40,000 per person, and it is two pots rather than one: $20,000 for medical expense loss, and a separate $20,000 covering income loss, replacement services, funeral expense and a survivor’s losses (§ 65B.44, subd. 1(a)). Income loss pays 85 percent of gross earnings up to $500 a week, and the weekly cap “may not be prorated to arrive at a daily maximum”. What Minnesota buys with that promptness is a restriction on general damages: under § 65B.51, subd. 3, damages for noneconomic detriment are unavailable unless medical expense exceeds $4,000 — net of diagnostic x-rays and rehabilitation, which the subdivision subtracts — or the injury produces permanent disfigurement, permanent injury, death, or disability for 60 days or more. Economic loss above the benefit caps needs no threshold at all (§ 65B.51, subd. 2).

Shared fault reduces, and the sequence matters more than most readers expect. Contributory fault “does not bar recovery … if the contributory fault was not greater than the fault of the person against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed must be diminished in proportion” (§ 604.01, subd. 1): a claimant at exactly half fault still recovers half, and is barred above that. Last clear chance is abolished by statute, and a failure to mitigate “may be considered only in determining the damages … It may not be considered in determining the cause of an accident” (subd. 1a). Then the order of operations, fixed in § 65B.51, subd. 1: where the claimant is at fault, the deduction for basic economic loss benefits must be made before the claimant’s damages are reduced under § 604.01, subd. 1. Doing it the other way round produces a different number, which is why any worked example has to follow the statute’s sequence.

On court deadlines, one half of the answer is settled and the other is not. Damage to the vehicle runs six years, under the clause covering actions “for taking, detaining, or injuring personal property” (§ 541.05, subd. 1(4)), and an action on the policy runs six years as the general contract period (§ 541.05, subd. 1(1)). The period for bodily injury is not stated here, and the reason is worth knowing rather than guessing at: § 541.05, subd. 1(5) prescribes six years for “any other injury to the person … not hereinafter enumerated”, while § 541.07(1) prescribes two years for “assault, battery, false imprisonment, or other tort resulting in personal injury”, and each section yields to the other in its own opening words. Which of the two governs an ordinary negligence claim for crash injuries turns on Minnesota case law that has not been read against a primary text for this entry, so no figure is published and the shorter of the two is the safer assumption until a Minnesota lawyer confirms it. Separately, § 65B.55, subd. 1 is a floor on notice and not a limitation period: a policy may require notice within a period “of not less than six months after the date of accident”, and failure to give it will not make a person ineligible for benefits unless the insurer shows actual prejudice, and then only to the extent of the prejudice.

The insurer’s clocks are statutory, unusually detailed, and expressed in three different units inside one section — which is exactly where a careless reading goes wrong. Under § 72A.201, subd. 4, an insurer has ten business days from notification of a claim to acknowledge it and supply the forms and instructions, unless it settles within those ten business days, and another ten business days to answer each later communication that reasonably indicates a response is needed. Two decision clocks run from different triggers: 30 business days from notification of the claim to complete the investigation and advise acceptance or denial (subd. 4(3)(i)), and 60 business days from receipt of a properly executed proof of loss (subd. 4(11)). Payment has its own deadline, which many states lack: five business days from the later of the insurer’s receipt of the agreement and the claimant’s performance of its conditions (subd. 5(5)). Then the units change — the warning owed to an unrepresented claimant before a limitation period expires is “at least 60 days” in plain days (subd. 4(8)), and no-fault benefits are overdue if unpaid 30 days after reasonable proof, carrying simple interest at 15 percent a year (§ 65B.54, subds. 1–2).

Three things are commonly stated wrongly about Minnesota. The compulsory liability limits are $30,000 for bodily injury to one person, $60,000 for two or more, and $10,000 for property damage (§ 65B.49, subd. 3(1)). Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is not offered but required: no plan may be renewed, delivered or issued “unless separate uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages are provided therein”, each at minimum limits of $25,000 and $50,000, and “every owner … shall maintain” them (§ 65B.49, subd. 3a(1)–(2)). The section carries no mechanism by which a Minnesota insured may turn that coverage down — the only choice is how much to buy above the floor. Reporting is the third correction: the driver must stop, give name, date of birth, address and plate number, render reasonable assistance, and where there is injury or death notify police “by the quickest means of communication” (§ 169.09, subds. 1–6), but there is no dollar threshold and no driver written-report duty, because the subdivision that required one at $1,000 of property damage was repealed in 2021. What remains is the officer’s report, and its triggers are circumstances rather than money.