Uninsured motorist coverage rules in Mississippi

If the driver who hit you had no insurance, or nowhere near enough of it, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is often the only pocket left to pay for your injuries. In Mississippi that isn't a rare situation. The Insurance Research Council found that 28.2% of Mississippi drivers were uninsured in 2023, the highest rate of any state and almost double the national figure of 15.4%.¹ More than one in four cars on the road here carries no liability insurance at all. That single number is why UM coverage matters more in Mississippi than in most places.

This page sticks to what's specific to Mississippi: the statutes and the specific rules that trip people up. The national hub above covers the general idea of how UM and UIM coverage works.

You aren't required to carry it, but your insurer has to offer it

Mississippi doesn't force you to buy uninsured motorist coverage. It forces the offer. Under Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-101, every auto liability policy issued or delivered in the state has to include UM coverage unless the named insured rejects it in writing.² That rejection must be signed by or on behalf of the named insured on a form approved by the Department of Insurance, and once it's signed it binds everyone on the policy and is presumed to be a knowing, informed waiver.²

Here's the practical upshot. If you never signed a written rejection, you may carry UM coverage even if you don't remember buying it. That's worth checking after a crash with an uninsured driver, because carriers sometimes treat the coverage as waived when no valid signed rejection actually exists.

When you do carry it, the limits can't fall below Mississippi's minimum liability limits of 25/50/25: $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, plus $25,000 for property damage.³⁴ Those minimums have been in force since January 1, 2006.

Underinsured coverage is baked into the same statute

Mississippi doesn't sell "UIM" as a separate product the way some states do. Instead, the definition of an "uninsured motor vehicle" in Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-103 is written broadly enough to swallow an underinsured one. A car counts as uninsured when the at-fault driver's bodily-injury liability limits are lower than the UM limits on your own policy.⁵

So picture a driver who carried the state-minimum $25,000 and hit you while you carry $100,000 in UM coverage. That shortfall is exactly what your own policy is there to fill. You collect the at-fault driver's limits first, then turn to your UM coverage for the difference, up to your own limit. Your insurer then steps into your shoes to pursue the at-fault driver, because § 83-11-107 gives it a right of subrogation for what it paid out.⁶

Stacking is allowed here

If you insure more than one vehicle, or you're covered under more than one policy, you can often "stack" UM limits by adding them together to raise the total available to you. Mississippi permits this, and the statute itself is the tell: § 83-11-102 had to create a specific opt-out that lets the owner of four or more vehicles buy a single, non-stacking limit "in lieu of" separate coverage on each car.⁷ A carve-out like that only makes sense because stacking is otherwise the norm. For a household with two or three insured cars, stacking can turn a $50,000 limit into $100,000 or more of protection.

The hit-and-run trap: you usually need physical contact

Mississippi's UM statute does reach crashes caused by an unknown driver, but it attaches a hard condition. Under § 83-11-103, when the owner or operator of the vehicle that hurt you is unknown, "actual physical contact must have occurred" between that vehicle and you or your car before you can recover.⁵ A phantom driver who forces you off the road without ever touching your vehicle generally won't trigger UM coverage.

That rule is a reason to lock down evidence of contact right away after any hit-and-run. Photograph paint transfer and dents, and start the police crash report while everything is fresh (see thatcarhitme.com/crash-reports/mississippi).

Property damage plays by different rules than injuries

UM coverage in Mississippi reaches property damage too, but the terms are tighter. Section 83-11-101 lets an insurer exclude the first $200 of property damage under the UM endorsement, so minor dents come out of your own pocket.²

A bigger limit surprises people. In Watkins v. Allstate Property & Casualty Insurance Co., the Fifth Circuit held in January 2024 that Mississippi's UM statute has no "underinsured" category for property damage the way it does for bodily injury, so an insurer could lawfully exclude the diminished value of a repaired vehicle from a UM property-damage claim.⁸ If your car is worth less after a serious wreck even though it's been fixed, that lost value can be hard to recover through UM. Diminished value claims run on their own track in Mississippi, and that's covered at thatcarhitme.com/diminished-value/mississippi.

The deadline is three years, and it applies to your own insurer

A UM claim is a claim against your own insurance company, but Mississippi's general three-year personal-injury statute of limitations still governs it. Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49 gives you three years to bring suit, and courts apply that same window to uninsured motorist claims.⁹ Don't let the fact that you're dealing with "your own" carrier lull you into relaxing the calendar. If negotiations drag, the three-year clock can still run out and bar the claim for good.

Lawmakers keep trying to strengthen the default, and keep failing

Mississippi has tried, twice in two years, to make UM limits automatically match your liability limits unless you opt down in writing. House Bill 916 in 2024 and House Bill 1109 in 2025 proposed exactly that. Both died in committee.¹⁰¹¹ So the older rule still controls in 2026: UM must be offered and can be rejected in writing, and when you do buy it you can still choose limits below your liability coverage. In a state where more than a quarter of drivers are uninsured, strong UM protection is something you have to ask for and confirm on your declarations page. The default won't get you there.

What to do after a crash with an uninsured driver

Pull your own policy and find the UM limits and any signed rejection form. If an uninsured or barely insured driver hit you, your UM coverage may be the single largest source of recovery available, and stacking across your household's vehicles can raise it further. Because the same three-year deadline applies and insurers fight these claims hard, it's worth talking with an attorney who handles Mississippi UM disputes. You can find one through our legal directory.

This article is general information about Mississippi law, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Insurance Research Council, "Uninsured and Underinsured Motorists: 2017-2023." https://insurance-research.org/node/130

2. Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-101 (uninsured motorist coverage required to be offered; written rejection; $200 property-damage exclusion). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-83/chapter-11/article-3/section-83-11-101/

3. Mississippi Insurance Department, Auto Insurance consumer guide. https://www.mid.ms.gov/mississippi-insurance-department/consumers/auto-insurance/

4. Miss. Code Ann. Title 63, Chapter 15 (Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Law), minimum liability limits. https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-63/chapter-15/

5. Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-103 (definition of "uninsured motor vehicle," including underinsured vehicles and the physical-contact requirement). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-83/chapter-11/article-3/section-83-11-103/

6. Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-107 (insurer's right of subrogation). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-83/chapter-11/article-3/section-83-11-107/

7. Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-102 (single-limit, nonstacking coverage for four or more vehicles). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-83/chapter-11/article-3/section-83-11-102/

8. Watkins v. Allstate Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. 23-60141 (5th Cir. Jan. 12, 2024). https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/23-60141/23-60141-2024-01-12.html

9. Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49 (three-year statute of limitations). https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-15/chapter-1/section-15-1-49/

10. Mississippi Legislature, House Bill 916 (2024 Regular Session), died in committee. https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2024/html/HB/0900-0999/HB0916IN.htm

11. Mississippi Legislature, House Bill 1109 (2025 Regular Session), died in committee. https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2025/html/HB/1100-1199/HB1109IN.htm