Fault system (no-fault vs at-fault) in Massachusetts

Massachusetts logged 128,769 crashes in 2025.¹ If you were in one of them, the confusing part is that the state doesn't sit cleanly on either side of the no-fault versus at-fault divide. It's both, one after the other. Your own insurer pays your first medical bills no matter who caused the wreck, and only after your injuries cross a set line can you turn around and sue the driver who hit you.

Here's how that actually works in the Commonwealth, with the numbers and deadlines that decide real cases.

Your own insurer pays first

Every Massachusetts auto policy carries Personal Injury Protection (PIP), and it pays regardless of who was at fault. State law makes it mandatory.² PIP covers up to $8,000 per person for a single accident,³ and that money goes toward medical bills, part of your lost wages, and certain replacement-services costs. It reaches passengers in your car and pedestrians you might hit, not only you.

Timing is written into the statute. Once a treating physician notifies your insurer of your disability, the company has ten days to either begin paying or send written notice that it won't.² That deadline is worth knowing, because carriers do let it slip.

PIP is the no-fault half of the system. You file with your own company, and you don't have to prove the other driver was careless. For a fender-bender with light injuries, the $8,000 may cover everything, and the claim ends there. That speed is the trade. In return for fault-free payments up front, the no-fault rules limit when you can go after the harder-to-measure harm, your pain and suffering.

When you can step outside no-fault and sue

The $8,000 ceiling is low, and a serious injury passes it quickly. Massachusetts lets you leave the no-fault system and bring a claim against the at-fault driver for pain and suffering, but only once you clear a threshold set by statute.

Under M.G.L. c. 231, § 6D, you can sue for pain and suffering if your reasonable medical expenses come to more than $2,000.⁴ You also clear the threshold, whatever the bill totals, if the injury:

• caused death,
• consists in whole or in part of loss of a body member,
• is a permanent and serious disfigurement,
• caused loss of sight or hearing as defined by statute, or
• consists of a fracture.⁴

A single broken bone qualifies on its own. So does a lasting scar. If none of these apply and your bills stay under $2,000, you're held to PIP and can't pursue pain and suffering. This is the reason to keep every bill and receipt from your treatment; those costs are what carry you over the line.

How fault splits the money

Once you're past the threshold and suing the other driver, fault decides everything, and Massachusetts follows a modified comparative negligence rule.

You can recover as long as your share of the blame "was not greater than" the combined fault of everyone you're suing.⁵ Put simply: at 50% or less you can still recover, and at 51% or more you get nothing. Whatever you win is then reduced by your own percentage. If a jury values the case at $100,000 and finds you 30% responsible, you collect $70,000.

Weather doesn't move that line. The Boston area averages about 49 inches of snow a year,⁶ and a snowy road is not a defense by itself. Drivers are expected to slow down for conditions, so an icy morning rarely shifts fault off the person who rear-ended you. This is why the percentage in an adjuster's file is never a small detail. A move from 20% to 40% is money straight out of your settlement, and disputed fault is exactly where an experienced lawyer earns the fee.

What the at-fault driver is supposed to carry

For policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2025, Massachusetts raised its minimum liability limits.⁷ Every driver must now carry at least:

• $25,000 for bodily injury to one person,
• $50,000 for all bodily injury in one accident, and
• $30,000 for property damage.³

Insurers write that as 25/50/30. The property-damage floor jumped from $5,000 to $30,000 under the 2024 law,⁷ which matters when the at-fault driver totals your car.

These are minimums, and many drivers carry nothing more. If the person who hit you had no insurance, your own policy has to step in: uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is mandatory in Massachusetts at the same limits as your bodily injury liability.⁸ Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage, which fills the gap when the at-fault driver's limits are too small to cover your losses, is optional. Your insurer must offer it, but you're allowed to decline it.⁸ Check your declarations page before you assume you have it.

The deadlines that end your claim

You have three years from the date of the crash to file suit for personal injury or property damage.⁹ Let that window pass and the court will dismiss the case, however strong it is.

Property damage runs on the same three-year clock.⁹ If your car lost resale value after being repaired, that loss is a separate diminished value claim you can pursue on its own. Well before the deadline, get the official police crash report; it's the record that anchors the fault question.¹⁰

Damages and drunk drivers

Massachusetts puts no cap on compensatory damages in an ordinary car accident case. There's no ceiling on economic losses such as medical bills and lost income, and none on noneconomic losses such as pain and suffering. The $500,000 noneconomic cap you may have read about applies to medical malpractice, not car crashes. Punitive damages are the exception. They're generally unavailable in a straight negligence case unless the crash killed someone, and then the wrongful death statute allows punitive damages of at least $5,000 for gross negligence or willful, wanton, or reckless conduct.¹¹

If a drunk driver caused your crash, the bar or restaurant that over-served them can share the liability. Under Massachusetts common law, a server who keeps pouring for a visibly intoxicated patron can answer for the harm that patron later does, a rule the Supreme Judicial Court laid out in Cimino v. Milford Keg, Inc.¹²

Getting help

Crashes concentrate in the cities. Boston alone recorded 451 crashes in April 2026.¹³ If your injuries cleared the tort threshold, or an insurer is disputing the fault split, a Massachusetts attorney is often worth the call. You can find one through the thatcarhitme.com legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. thatcarhitme.com, Massachusetts statewide year-over-year crash report, 2025. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/massachusetts/statewide/2025-annual-report

2. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 90, § 34M (PIP mandate and 10-day payment rule). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter90/Section34M

3. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 90, § 34A (PIP $8,000 definition and minimum liability limits). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter90/Section34A

4. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 6D (tort threshold to recover for pain and suffering). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter231/Section6D

5. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85 (comparative negligence). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter231/Section85

6. National Weather Service, Boston/Norton MA climate normals (1991-2020), annual snowfall 49.2 in. https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=CLM&issuedby=BOS

7. Acts of 2024, ch. 275 (amending Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 90, § 34A; new minimum limits effective July 1, 2025). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2024/Chapter275

8. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 175, § 113L (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXII/Chapter175/Section113L

9. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A (three-year statute of limitations for tort claims). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleV/Chapter260/Section2A

10. Massachusetts RMV, Request a copy of a police crash report. https://www.mass.gov/how-to/request-a-copy-of-a-police-crash-report

11. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2 (wrongful death; punitive damages). https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter229/Section2

12. Cimino v. Milford Keg, Inc., 385 Mass. 323 (1982), via CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2038751/cimino-v-milford-keg-inc/

13. thatcarhitme.com, Boston MA crash report, April 2026. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/massachusetts/boston/april-2026-report