The District of Columbia runs a car-insurance system that trips up drivers who have lived here for years. It's not a pure no-fault jurisdiction, and it's not a standard tort state either. DC gives you a choice after a crash, and that choice runs on a 60-day clock with a real tradeoff attached. Get it wrong and you can lose the right to sue, or the right to fast medical payments. Here's how personal injury protection (PIP) and medical-payments coverage actually work under District law.
DC is a choice no-fault jurisdiction
The baseline in the District is an ordinary fault system. Every registered vehicle has to carry liability insurance, and after a crash you can pursue the at-fault driver for your injuries and losses. Layered on top of that baseline, the Compulsory/No-Fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act lets drivers add optional PIP coverage that pays your own medical bills and lost wages no matter who caused the wreck.1 Insurers are required to offer PIP, and you are free to buy it or turn it down.2
So the first thing to understand is that PIP in the District is optional, not mandatory. Unlike Florida or Michigan, where no-fault coverage is compulsory, a DC driver can carry only the required liability and uninsured-motorist coverage3 and skip PIP entirely.
What PIP pays
If you carry PIP and elect to use it, D.C. Code 31-2404 sets the minimum benefits your insurer has to provide per victim. Medical and rehabilitation expenses are covered up to at least 50,000 dollars, and insurers must also offer a higher 100,000 dollar option. Work-loss benefits run to at least 12,000 dollars, with a 24,000 dollar option available; the piece that pays someone to handle tasks you can no longer do yourself is capped at the first three years after the crash. Funeral and burial costs are covered up to 4,000 dollars.2
These benefits are paid without regard to fault, so a PIP claim doesn't require you to prove the other driver did anything wrong.2 That's the draw: the money moves quickly and does not wait on a liability fight.
The 60-day election trap
Here's the part that catches people off guard. Having PIP on your policy is not the same as using it. Under D.C. Code 31-2405, a crash victim has to notify the PIP insurer in writing that they elect to receive PIP benefits within 60 days of the accident.4 Miss that window and the benefits are gone, unless you and the insurer agreed in writing to extend the deadline.4
The election is also a fork in the road. Once you choose PIP benefits, you generally give up the right to sue the at-fault driver for the same crash. You can only step back into a lawsuit if you clear one of the statute's thresholds: a substantial and permanent scar or disfigurement, a medically demonstrable permanent injury that impairs your daily or working life, an impairment that keeps you from your usual activities for more than 180 continuous days, or medical and work-loss costs that exceed the PIP benefits available to you. Survivors keep their wrongful-death claim regardless.4
That tradeoff, no-fault money now versus the right to sue later, is the whole decision. And you often have to make it before you know how badly you're actually hurt.
Why the choice carries more weight here
The reason the election is so consequential in the District comes down to one of the harshest liability rules in the country. DC still follows pure contributory negligence: if you are even one percent at fault for a crash, you are barred from recovering anything from the other driver in an ordinary driver-versus-driver claim. The DC Court of Appeals confirmed the rule in Wingfield v. Peoples Drug Store.5
Against that backdrop, guaranteed no-fault benefits look very different. If there's any argument that you share blame, a tort claim could collapse entirely, while PIP pays your medical bills and lost wages regardless. The District softened the rule for vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists, and other non-motorists recover under a comparative standard and are only barred if their own fault is greater than the combined fault of everyone else.6 Drivers get no such break.
Where med-pay fits
People use "PIP" and "med-pay" interchangeably, but in the District the statutory first-party medical benefit is PIP. Standalone medical-payments coverage isn't one of the coverages DC requires you to carry,3 and it isn't part of the compulsory scheme the way liability and uninsured-motorist coverage are. Some insurers sell med-pay as an add-on, but if you want first-party medical protection built into DC law, PIP is the mechanism the statute actually describes. Either way, coordinate with your health insurer early, because how these layers stack affects what you pay out of pocket and what has to be repaid later.
The coverage floor, and what is about to change
The District's mandatory minimums are 25/50/10: 25,000 dollars in bodily-injury coverage per person, 50,000 dollars per accident, and 10,000 dollars for property damage.3 Those numbers haven't moved since 1986. Uninsured-motorist coverage is also required and mirrors the bodily-injury limits at 25,000 and 50,000 dollars, plus 5,000 dollars of uninsured-motorist property damage subject to a 200 dollar deductible.3
Change is coming. The DC Council passed the Motor Vehicle Insurance Modernization Act of 2025 (Bill 26-0057), which raises the bodily-injury minimums to 50,000 dollars per person and 100,000 dollars per accident and ties future minimums to inflation.7 The bill was enrolled and sent to the Mayor in mid-2026, but it hadn't taken effect as of this writing, so the 25/50/10 floor is still the law today.
Deadlines that actually bind
Two clocks matter most after a District crash. The 60-day PIP election is the short one. The long one is the statute of limitations: you generally have three years from the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit, and three years for vehicle-damage and other property claims.8 There's a trap if a government vehicle was involved. A claim against the District itself requires written notice to the Mayor within six months of the injury, far shorter than the three-year suit deadline.9
If you need the official crash report to support a PIP or liability claim, the Metropolitan Police Department is the source.10 When your losses go beyond medical bills, such as the resale value your car lost after being wrecked and repaired, that's a separate diminished-value claim. And if the coverage math gets complicated, or an insurer is pushing you toward the wrong election, it's worth talking to a District attorney before the 60 days run out.
The stakes here are unusually lopsided. A short deadline sits on top of a fault rule harsh enough to zero out a tort claim, and the PIP election forces a one-time choice between guaranteed payments and your day in court. Knowing which lever you are pulling, and when, is most of the battle.
This article is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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D.C. Code § 31-2406, Compulsory/No-Fault Motor Vehicle Insurance Act. https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/31-2406
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D.C. Code § 31-2404 (personal injury protection benefits). https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/31-2404
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DC DMV, Vehicle Insurance requirements. https://dmv.dc.gov/service/vehicle-insurance
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D.C. Code § 31-2405 (election deadline and lawsuit restriction). https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/31-2405
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Wingfield v. Peoples Drug Store, Inc., 379 A.2d 685 (D.C. 1977). https://law.justia.com/cases/district-of-columbia/court-of-appeals/1977/11243-3.html
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D.C. Code § 50-2204.52, Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Act (vulnerable users). https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/50-2204.52
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DC Council Bill 26-0057, Motor Vehicle Insurance Modernization Act of 2025. https://legiscan.com/DC/bill/B26-0057/2025
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D.C. Code § 12-301 (statute of limitations). https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/12-301
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D.C. Code § 12-309 (notice of claim to the Mayor). https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/12-309
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Metropolitan Police Department, Request an Accident Report (PD-10). https://mpdc.dc.gov/service/request-accident-report-pd-10-or-incidentoffense-report-pd-251