Car Accident Statute of Limitations in Connecticut

Connecticut logged 103,489 crashes statewide in 2025, and the pace hasn't let up: March 2026 alone added another 1,737.¹² Every one of those crashes started a legal clock, and Connecticut runs several different versions of it depending on who you're suing and what kind of harm you're claiming. Miss the wrong one and a court will dismiss an otherwise strong case, no matter how clear the fault.

The general shape of a statute of limitations is the same everywhere: a window to sue that eventually closes. Connecticut's version has more moving parts than the two-year figure most people repeat, and several of its rules catch people who assumed the clock works here the way it does elsewhere.

The two-year, three-year rule

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-584 gives you two years from the date you discovered the injury, or reasonably should have discovered it, to sue for harm caused by negligence.³ The discovery language matters. If you didn't realize you'd herniated a disc until an MRI three months after the crash, the two years starts from that discovery, not from the collision itself, as long as a reasonably careful person in your position wouldn't have caught it sooner.

There's still a hard outer wall, though. No matter when you discover the injury, § 52-584 bars any suit filed more than three years after the date of the crash itself.³ A slow-developing injury that surfaces in year four has no remedy in a Connecticut courtroom, discovery rule or not. The same statute, not a separate one, governs property damage from the same crash, so a totaled car and a strained neck share one filing deadline.³ If the crash also knocked down your vehicle's resale value, that's a related but separate claim; see our Connecticut diminished value guide for how that works.

Minors don't get extra time

Most states pause the clock for an injured child until they turn 18. Connecticut doesn't. The state Supreme Court held in Lametta v. Connecticut Light & Power Co. that § 52-584 "cannot be construed as embodying an exception by implication in favor of an unemancipated minor."⁴ A child hurt in a crash at age 10 still has to sue, through a parent or guardian as next friend, by age 13, same as an adult would from the date of injury.

Lawmakers have tried to fix this. A 2015 bill would have let minors sue up to a year after turning 18, with an outer cap of eight years from the crash. It passed the Senate, stalled in the House, and never reached the governor's desk.⁵ The rule from Lametta still controls, so a parent who waits too long can lose the child's claim along with their own.

Wrongful death runs on a different clock

If the crash was fatal, § 52-555 gives the estate two years from the date of death, capped at five years from the date of the crash regardless of when death occurs.⁶ An executor or administrator of the estate brings the claim, not the family members directly. Those two time limits usually line up, since death is often immediate, but a death that comes two-plus years after the crash can quietly close the door on a claim before anyone thinks to file it. The five-year cap disappears if the at-fault driver is convicted, or found not guilty by reason of mental disease, of certain manslaughter or murder charges tied to the death.⁶

Claims against a town or the state run on a much shorter clock

Get hurt by a pothole, a defective bridge, or a road a town failed to maintain, and the ordinary rule doesn't apply. Under § 13a-149, Connecticut's highway defect statute, you have only 90 days from the injury to send written notice to the town clerk, or comparable local official, describing the injury and when, where, and how it happened.⁷ Miss that window and the claim is gone, regardless of how much of the two-year suit deadline that follows it is still left.⁷

Claims against the State of Connecticut itself, say a crash caused by a state trooper's cruiser or a defect on a state highway, don't go to Superior Court first. They go to the Office of the Claims Commissioner. Under § 4-148, you have one year from when the claim accrues to file notice, with the same three-year outer cap that applies to ordinary negligence if the injury wasn't immediately obvious.⁸

If the at-fault driver leaves Connecticut

Section 52-590 excludes from the clock any time the person you're suing spends outside Connecticut after the crash, up to seven years.⁹ This mostly comes up in hit-and-run cases where the driver is later identified living out of state, or where someone at fault moves away before they can be served with the lawsuit.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims run on their own timeline

Connecticut requires UM/UIM coverage on every auto policy at limits at least equal to the driver's own liability coverage, so most drivers already carry this protection without realizing it.¹⁰ Insurers can't shorten the time to sue or demand arbitration on a UM/UIM claim to less than three years from the accident, matching the ordinary negligence deadline instead of a shorter one buried in the policy.¹¹

For underinsured claims specifically, that window can stretch further. Notify your own insurer in writing before the three years run out, and you then get 180 days from the date the at-fault driver's liability limits are exhausted, by settlement or a final judgment, to sue or demand arbitration.¹¹ And if the at-fault driver's insurer turns out to be insolvent or denies coverage outright, a separate one-year clock starts running from the day you receive written notice of that insolvency or denial.¹¹

There's no separate PIP or medical-payments deadline layered on top of any of this. Connecticut repealed its no-fault insurance law effective January 1, 1994, and has run a pure tort system since; medical payments coverage, where a driver has it, is optional add-on coverage with no statutory claim window of its own.¹²

Working backward from the crash date

Start with the date of the crash and work outward: 90 days if a town or the state might share fault, one year if the claim runs through the Claims Commissioner, two years for the standard injury or wrongful death deadline, three years as the absolute outer edge if an injury takes time to surface. If you don't have a copy of the official report yet, Connecticut's crash reports walk through how to get one. Because the government-defendant deadlines in particular can expire before most people even think to check them, it's worth having a Connecticut attorney from our legal directory look at the calendar early rather than close to a filing date.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. thatcarhitme.com, Connecticut Statewide Crash Report, 2025 Annual, https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/connecticut/statewide/2025-annual-report

2. thatcarhitme.com, Connecticut Statewide Crash Report, March 2026, https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/connecticut/statewide/march-2026-report

3. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-584, Limitation of action for injury to person or property caused by negligence, misconduct or malpractice, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_926.htm#sec_52-584

4. Lametta v. Connecticut Light & Power Co., 139 Conn. 218, 92 A.2d 731 (Conn. 1952), https://law.justia.com/cases/connecticut/supreme-court/1952/139-conn-218-1.html

5. Connecticut General Assembly, Judiciary Committee Joint Favorable Report on Senate Bill 1028 (2015), An Act Concerning the Tolling of the Statute of Limitations for a Negligence Action Brought by a Minor, https://cga.ct.gov/2015/JFR/S/2015SB-01028-R00JUD-JFR.htm

6. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-555, Actions for injuries resulting in death, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_925.htm#sec_52-555

7. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 13a-149, Damages for injuries by means of defective roads and bridges, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_238.htm#sec_13a-149

8. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4-148, Limitation on presentation of claim; exceptions, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_053.htm#sec_4-148

9. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-590, When defendant's absence from state to be excluded, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_926.htm#sec_52-590

10. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 38a-336, Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_700.htm#sec_38a-336

11. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 38a-336(g), Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_700.htm#sec_38a-336

12. Public Act 93-297 (1993), An Act Concerning Automobile Insurance Reform, https://www.cga.ct.gov/ps93/Act/pa/1993PA-00297-R00HB-05176-PA.htm