What to do after a car accident in Maine

What Maine law actually says after a crash: the six-year filing deadline, the 50/100/25 insurance minimums, mandatory UM/UIM and medical payments coverage, the equal-fault bar, and where to get your official crash report.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jul 13, 2026
6 min read

The steps right after a crash are mostly the same anywhere: check for injuries, call 911, move to safety if you can, trade information, and photograph everything. What changes from state to state is the legal machinery that decides who pays and how long you have to act. Maine handles several of those pieces differently from its neighbors, and a few of the differences are easy to get wrong.

Maine is an at-fault state

Maine follows a traditional at-fault (tort) system. The driver responsible for the crash, through their liability insurance, pays for the damage they caused.1 There is no true no-fault PIP here, so you don't turn first to your own policy for everything regardless of blame. Maine does build a small first-dollar cushion into every standard auto policy, though: mandatory medical payments coverage of at least $2,000 per person for costs incurred within one year of the crash, and you can't reject it on a standard personal auto policy.2 That coverage pays your early bills no matter who caused the wreck, which buys time while the fault question gets sorted out.

Report the crash and get the report

You have to report the crash to police if anyone is hurt or killed, or if there is apparent property damage of $2,000 or more. The operator (or the owner, if the operator is unknown) must notify the State Police, sheriff, or local police immediately, by the quickest means available.3 For anything beyond a scrape, get an officer to the scene.

The official crash report becomes the backbone of an insurance claim. In Maine, crash reports are held by the Maine State Police (Department of Public Safety) and sold through the Maine Crash Reporting Online Search and Ordering Service for $10 per report.4 For how to pull yours, see our Maine crash report guide.

The deadline: six years

This is the number people misremember most. Maine gives you six years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, under the general limit for civil actions.5 There is no separate, shorter statute for car accident injuries; the same six-year window applies, and vehicle property damage runs on that same clock.5 Six years is generous compared with most states, but don't treat it as a reason to wait. Evidence fades, witnesses move, and insurers work far faster than that.

Fault sharing and the 50 percent bar

Maine uses modified comparative negligence, and its version has a quirk worth understanding. If you share some blame, your damages get cut by your share. But if a jury finds you equally at fault, meaning 50/50, you recover nothing at all. The statute bars recovery when the claimant is "equally at fault," so the cutoff sits right at half.6 In a state where winter road conditions often turn a crash into an argument over who could have stopped, that 50 percent line carries real weight. Document the other driver's conduct carefully.

What insurance you're actually dealing with

Maine's minimum liability limits are 50/100/25: $50,000 for injury to or death of one person, $100,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage, plus the $2,000 in medical payments and $500 in towing and storage coverage baked into every policy.7 Those bodily injury minimums sit higher than the floor in many states, but a serious injury still blows past $50,000 fast.

That is where uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage comes in, and Maine treats it as a default rather than an add-on. Every policy has to include UM/UIM equal to your liability limits unless you sign a written rejection before the policy takes effect, and even a reduced amount can't drop below the statutory floor.8 If the driver who hit you has no insurance or not enough, your own UM/UIM steps in. Check your declarations page, because you very likely have it.

Damages: what Maine does and doesn't cap

In an ordinary car accident case, Maine puts no cap on compensatory damages, the money for medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Punitive damages are a different story. Maine allows them only when you prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted with malice, and the Law Court held in Tuttle v. Raymond that reckless conduct alone, even genuinely bad driving, isn't enough.9

Wrongful death claims follow their own rules. If a crash kills a family member, Maine caps damages for loss of comfort, society, and companionship at $1,000,000 (adjusted for inflation) and punitive damages at $500,000.10 Medical and funeral expenses and lost financial support fall outside that cap.

Drunk drivers and the people who over-served them

If a bar or restaurant kept serving a visibly intoxicated person who then caused your crash, the Maine Liquor Liability Act can reach the server, not just the driver. Damages against a server, other than expenses for medical care, are capped at $350,000 for any single accident or occurrence.11 You have to bring that claim within two years.12 Against the drunk driver personally, punitive damages stay available in a negligence suit, but only on the same clear-and-convincing malice standard from Tuttle, not mere recklessness.9

Motorcycles, phones, and winter

Maine's helmet law is partial. Operators and passengers under 18 must wear a helmet, as must anyone riding on a learner's permit or within one year of passing the motorcycle road test, and any passenger of an operator who is required to wear one.13 Lane-splitting is illegal statewide: a motorcycle gets full use of a lane, and no one may operate a motorcycle between lanes or between adjacent rows of vehicles.14

Phones are a full handheld ban. You can't hold, talk into, or otherwise manipulate a handheld device while driving, including while stopped at a red light or stop sign. Hands-free use is allowed for licensed drivers 18 and older. Fines run $50 for a first offense and $250 after that.15 A phone citation against the other driver is useful evidence of negligence.

And this is Maine, so weather is a real factor. The state sees heavy annual snowfall and long stretches of freezing conditions.16 Snow and ice don't excuse a driver who was following too closely or going too fast for the conditions, and they don't automatically shift blame onto you either.

Vehicle damage and diminished value

Even after a clean repair, a vehicle with a crash on its record is usually worth less than one without. That gap is diminished value, and it is a separate line of recovery from the repair bill. We cover how to pursue it in Maine on our Maine diminished value page.

When to bring in a lawyer

Small property-only claims you can often handle yourself. Once there is a real injury, a genuine fault dispute, a commercial vehicle, or an insurer that won't come up to a fair number, the six-year deadline and the equal-fault bar make good advice worth the cost. You can find a Maine attorney through our legal directory.

This is general information about Maine law, not legal advice for your specific situation.

Sources

  1. Maine Bureau of Insurance, A Consumer's Guide to Personal Auto Insurance. https://www.maine.gov/pfr/insurance/sites/maine.gov.pfr.insurance/files/inline-files/12.6.24Consumers%20Guide%20to%20Personal%20Auto%20Insurance.pdf

  2. 29-A M.R.S. Section 1605-A (required medical payments coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605-A.html

  3. 29-A M.R.S. Section 2251 (accident reports). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec2251.html

  4. Maine Crash Reporting Online Search and Ordering Service, Maine State Police (Department of Public Safety). https://apps1.web.maine.gov/online/mcrs/index.html

  5. 14 M.R.S. Section 752 (limitation of civil actions, six years). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec752.html

  6. 14 M.R.S. Section 156 (comparative negligence). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec156.html

  7. 29-A M.R.S. Section 1605 (minimum insurance coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605.html

  8. 24-A M.R.S. Section 2902 (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/24-a/title24-Asec2902.html

  9. Tuttle v. Raymond, 494 A.2d 1353 (Me. 1985). https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1985/494-a-2d-1353-0.html

  10. 18-C M.R.S. Section 2-807 (wrongful death). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec2-807.html

  11. 28-A M.R.S. Section 2509 (Maine Liquor Liability Act, limitation of damages). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/28-a/title28-Asec2509.html

  12. 28-A M.R.S. Section 2514 (Maine Liquor Liability Act, limitation of actions). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/28-a/title28-Asec2514.html

  13. 29-A M.R.S. Section 2083 (protective headgear). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec2083.html

  14. 29-A M.R.S. Section 2062 (motorcycles, use of a lane). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec2062.html

  15. 29-A M.R.S. Section 2121 (use of a handheld electronic device or mobile telephone). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec2121.html

  16. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information / NCICS, Maine State Climate Summary. https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/me/

About This Guide

Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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