Fault system in Arkansas: no-fault vs at-fault, explained

Arkansas runs on an at-fault system. If another driver caused your crash, their liability insurance is supposed to pay for your injuries and your vehicle, and you keep the right to sue that driver directly for what you lost. There's no no-fault wall between you and the person who hit you, and no injury threshold you have to clear before you can bring a claim.

The confusion usually starts with a coverage called personal injury protection, or PIP, which pays some of your own early bills regardless of who caused the crash. Arkansas has that coverage. Having it does not make Arkansas a no-fault state. The two ideas get mixed up constantly, so it helps to pull them apart first.

What at-fault actually means here

In an at-fault state, the driver responsible for a crash pays for the harm, usually through their insurer. After a collision you generally have three routes: file a claim against the at-fault driver's liability insurance, file with your own insurer and let it pursue the other side, or file a lawsuit in circuit court. Arkansas requires every driver to carry liability insurance for exactly this purpose.¹

Because there's no lawsuit threshold, you can pursue pain and suffering, lost wages, and other losses from the at-fault driver from day one, no matter how minor the injury looks at first. That's the practical line between Arkansas and a true no-fault state, where your right to sue is restricted unless your injuries pass a legal bar. In Arkansas that bar doesn't exist. Property damage works the same way: you can bill the at-fault driver's insurer, or go through your own collision coverage and let your insurer recover from theirs.

The add-on coverage that pays no matter who caused it

Here's the piece that trips people up. Arkansas law requires every private passenger auto policy to include a set of first-party benefits that pay without regard to fault, unless the named insured rejects them in writing.² Under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-202, your insurer has to make available at least:

• Medical and hospital benefits of $5,000 per person for expenses incurred within 24 months of the crash
• Income disability benefits for lost wages
• Accidental death benefits

Those benefits reach the named insured, family members in the same household, passengers in the insured car, and pedestrians the car strikes, all without regard to who caused the wreck.² People often call this no-fault coverage, which is exactly where the label confusion comes from. It pays fast and skips the fight over blame, which genuinely helps in the first weeks after a crash. But it sits on top of the tort system rather than replacing it. Collecting PIP does not cap your injuries, does not stop you from suing the at-fault driver, and does not reduce the value of your claim against them. If PIP covers your first $5,000 in medical bills, you still recover the full measure of your damages from the person who caused the crash. That's the reverse of how a threshold no-fault state works. And because the coverage is rejectable in writing, plenty of Arkansas drivers carry none of it.

How your own share of fault changes your recovery

Arkansas follows modified comparative fault with a 50% bar, set out in Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122.³ Two things flow from it. First, if you're partly to blame, your recovery drops by your percentage of fault: found 20% at fault on a $100,000 claim, you collect $80,000. Second, if your own fault is "equal to or greater in degree" than the fault of the party you're suing, you recover nothing at all.³

In a two-car crash that's the familiar 50% line. Reach 50% and you're out. Where more than one defendant is involved, the comparison is to their combined fault, which gives you a little more room. The statute defines fault broadly, covering any act or omission that is a proximate cause of the damages, so most of what you did behind the wheel can be weighed against you.³ This is why insurers push so hard to pin a share of blame on you. Every point they move onto you shrinks the payout, and getting you to 50% erases it.

What the at-fault driver is required to carry

Every driver in Arkansas must carry liability insurance of at least 25/50/25 under Ark. Code Ann. § 27-22-104:¹

• $25,000 for bodily injury or death of one person
• $50,000 for total bodily injury per accident
• $25,000 for property damage per accident

Those are legal floors, not typical policy sizes, and they run out fast in a serious crash. If your medical bills and lost income pass the at-fault driver's limits, their policy pays up to the cap and you're left looking at that driver's personal assets, your own coverage, or both. That gap is why the next coverage matters so much.

When the at-fault driver has no insurance, or not enough

Arkansas requires insurers to offer uninsured motorist (UM) coverage, for both bodily injury and property damage, plus underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage, and you can decline any of it only in writing.⁴⁵ UM steps in when the at-fault driver has no insurance or drives off. UIM covers the shortfall when the other driver's limits are too small for your losses. A written rejection carries forward through every renewal until you withdraw it in writing,⁴ so a choice you made years ago may still be quietly limiting you today. Given how low the 25/50/25 minimums are, UIM is often the coverage that actually pays a serious claim.

The Arkansas Insurance Department confirms that liability is the only mandatory coverage in the state, while PIP, UM, and UIM have to be offered but can be turned down.⁶ It's worth pulling your own declarations page to see what you kept and what you waived.

Deadlines and limits on what you can recover

You generally have three years to file a personal injury lawsuit after an Arkansas car crash, and three years for vehicle and property damage, both under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105.⁷ Miss that window and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case, however strong it was. Insurance claims carry their own shorter internal deadlines, so the real clock is often much tighter than three years.

On damages, Arkansas is unusually favorable to injured people: there's no cap on compensatory damages. The state constitution bars the legislature from limiting recovery for injury to a person, and the Arkansas Supreme Court relied on that provision in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer to strike down the statutory cap on punitive damages.⁸ Economic losses, non-economic losses like pain and suffering, and punitive damages against a driver whose conduct was egregious enough to warrant them are all uncapped here.

Putting it together after a crash

The short version: the driver who caused your crash is responsible, their liability insurance pays first, your own PIP can cover early medical bills without a fault fight, and your own carelessness reduces or wipes out what you collect once you cross the 50% line. Get the official Arkansas crash report,⁹ keep records of everything, and watch the three-year deadline.

If your losses are significant or the other side is disputing fault, talking with a personal injury attorney early is often the difference between a quick lowball and the full value of your claim. And if your vehicle lost resale value even after a clean repair, that diminished value loss is a separate claim you can bring against the at-fault driver.

This is general information about Arkansas law, not legal advice; for guidance on your own situation, talk with a licensed Arkansas attorney.

Sources

1. Ark. Code Ann. § 27-22-104, Insurance required, minimum coverage. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-2/chapter-22/subchapter-1/section-27-22-104/

2. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-202, Required first party coverage. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-23/subtitle-3/chapter-89/subchapter-2/section-23-89-202/

3. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122, Comparative fault. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-64/section-16-64-122/

4. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-403, Uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage required. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-23/subtitle-3/chapter-89/subchapter-4/section-23-89-403/

5. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-209, Underinsured motorist coverage. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-23/subtitle-3/chapter-89/subchapter-2/section-23-89-209/

6. Arkansas Insurance Department, Automobile Insurance consumer brochure. https://insurance.arkansas.gov/documents/automobile-insurance-brochure/

7. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105, three-year limitations period. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-56/subchapter-1/section-16-56-105/

8. Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518 (striking the Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-208 punitive cap under Ark. Const. art. 5, § 32). https://law.justia.com/cases/arkansas/supreme-court/2011/10-1246-0.html

9. Arkansas State Police, Crash Report Online Purchase System. https://crashreports.ark.org/