PIP & Med-Pay rules in Louisiana

If you were just hurt in a Louisiana crash, start with one hard fact about your medical bills: no state fund and no automatic benefit is going to pay them for you. Louisiana does not have personal injury protection (PIP), and it is not a no-fault state. It runs on fault. Whoever caused the wreck, and their insurer, is responsible for the harm. Your own coverage only steps in if you bought the optional pieces that do that.

That is a different setup from Florida or Michigan, where every driver carries mandatory PIP and files first-party medical claims on a short clock. Louisiana has none of that machinery. It has a required liability policy, a menu of optional coverages you can add, and a handful of rules that decide how much of your losses you actually keep.

Louisiana requires liability, not PIP

Under Louisiana law every registered vehicle has to be covered by liability security, and nothing beyond that is mandatory.¹ The required minimum is 15/30/25: $15,000 of bodily injury coverage per person, $30,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage.² The Louisiana Department of Insurance puts it plainly in its 2026 Consumer's Guide to Auto Insurance: "Under Louisiana law, you must carry liability coverage on any automobile you own," at those 15/30/25 limits.³

Liability coverage pays for injuries and damage you cause to other people. It does nothing for your own medical bills. And look at what is missing from the required list. The state guide walks through every coverage a Louisiana driver can buy, from collision to uninsured motorist to medical payments, and never once mentions PIP or no-fault benefits, because Louisiana has neither.³

What Med-Pay does in Louisiana

Medical payments coverage, usually called Med-Pay, is the optional first-party coverage that comes closest to filling the gap PIP would leave. You decide whether to buy it, and you pick the limit, commonly somewhere between $1,000 and $10,000.

The Department of Insurance describes it clearly. Med-Pay "pays for medical expenses for a designated period of time following the accident, up to your policy's dollar limits," it "also includes funeral expenses," and it "covers you, your family members and other passengers in your car."³ The line that matters most after a crash: "Payments are made regardless of who is to blame for the accident."³

That is the whole point of Med-Pay. It does not wait for anyone to admit fault. If you carry a $5,000 Med-Pay limit and you are staring at emergency-room copays and a follow-up MRI while the fault fight drags on, that coverage can pay those bills now, whether the crash was your fault or the other driver's.

Unlike Florida-style PIP, Louisiana Med-Pay carries no state-imposed filing deadline. There is no 14-day rule to see a doctor and no statutory claim window written into the coverage. You still have to follow your own policy's terms, so tell your insurer promptly and keep your records, but the state does not bolt a special deadline onto Med-Pay the way no-fault states do.

The department adds one practical note: if you already have health insurance, you may not need much Med-Pay for yourself, though you can use it to fill gaps like deductibles and copays, and some Med-Pay also covers your passengers.³

How your medical bills actually get paid

With no PIP, an injured driver in Louisiana usually draws on some mix of four sources: the at-fault driver's liability insurance, your own Med-Pay if you bought it, your health insurance, and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.

That fourth one, UM/UIM, does a lot of the work in a state with plenty of underinsured drivers. It pays for your injuries when the person who hit you had no insurance or not enough of it. Here is the Louisiana-specific catch: UM/UIM is not flatly required. Insurers must offer it at limits equal to your liability coverage, but you, the named insured, can reject it, choose lower limits, or pick economic-only coverage. You can do that only in writing, on a form the insurance commissioner prescribes, signed by you.⁴ If you never signed a valid rejection, the law reads UM/UIM into your policy at your liability limits by default.⁴ It is worth pulling out that form to confirm what you actually selected.

The Louisiana rules that decide how much you keep

Buying coverage is only half of it. A few Louisiana rules control how much of your medical costs you can actually collect.

Fault sharing changed recently. For years Louisiana followed pure comparative fault, where you could recover something even if you were mostly to blame. As of January 1, 2026, the state moved to a modified system: if you are found 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing, and if you are under that line, your recovery is cut by your share of the blame.⁵ On a $40,000 injury claim where you are 20% at fault, you collect $32,000. That change came through Act 15 of the 2025 session and applies to crashes on or after January 1, 2026.⁵

There is a harsher rule if you were driving uninsured. Louisiana's No Pay, No Play law bars an uninsured owner or operator from recovering the first slice of their damages even when the other driver caused the wreck. A 2025 amendment raised that slice sharply: an uninsured driver now recovers nothing for the first $100,000 of bodily injury and nothing for the first $100,000 of property damage.⁶ There are exceptions, including when the at-fault driver was convicted of DWI, intentionally caused the crash, or fled the scene, and when the person making the claim was a passenger rather than the vehicle's owner.⁶ For most people the takeaway is simpler: keep your liability coverage active, because going without it can wipe out a six-figure claim.

And there is a clock. You have two years from the date of the crash to file suit for your injuries in Louisiana. That two-year prescriptive period took effect July 1, 2024 and replaced the old one-year rule, so it governs crashes on or after that date.⁷ Med-Pay and health-insurance payments do not pause it. If you do not settle or file within two years, the claim against the at-fault driver is generally gone, no matter how well documented your bills are.

Why this comes up so often

These are not rare questions. thatcarhitme.com's own crash data logged 15,038 crashes in Baton Rouge during 2025,⁸ and another 1,108 in the city in May 2026.⁹ Behind each of those numbers is a driver sorting out who pays for what, almost always without a PIP safety net underneath them.

If your vehicle itself lost value in the wreck, that is a separate claim from your medical bills; see our guide to diminished value in Louisiana. If you need the official police report, start at our Louisiana crash reports page. And when the coverage math gets complicated, especially with an uninsured driver, the No Pay, No Play bar, or a disputed fault percentage, it is worth talking to a lawyer; you can find an attorney who handles Louisiana crashes.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. La. R.S. 32:861, compulsory liability security, Louisiana State Legislature. https://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=88604

2. La. R.S. 32:900(B)(2), minimum motor vehicle liability limits, Louisiana State Legislature. https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=88632

3. Louisiana Department of Insurance, Consumer's Guide to Auto Insurance (Rev. 03/2026). https://www.ldi.la.gov/docs/default-source/documents/publicaffairs/consumerpublications/consumer's-guide-to-auto-insurance.pdf?sfvrsn=c0907c52_83

4. La. R.S. 22:1295, uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, Louisiana State Legislature. https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=508161

5. La. Civ. Code art. 2323, comparative fault, as amended by Acts 2025, No. 15 (effective January 1, 2026), Louisiana State Legislature. https://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/law.aspx?d=109387

6. La. R.S. 32:866, No Pay, No Play, as amended by Acts 2025, No. 16, Louisiana State Legislature. https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=88612

7. La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1, two-year prescriptive period, Acts 2024, No. 423 (effective July 1, 2024), Louisiana State Legislature. https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=1386443

8. thatcarhitme.com, Baton Rouge, LA crash report, 2025 annual. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/louisiana/baton-rouge/2025-annual-report

9. thatcarhitme.com, Baton Rouge, LA crash report, May 2026. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/louisiana/baton-rouge/may-2026-report