No-fault systems and tort thresholds

Four systems, not two

Under a pure at-fault system the at-fault driver’s liability insurance pays the injured party, who may sue for pain and suffering without any precondition. Most states work this way.

Under no-fault, each driver’s own personal injury protection pays their medical expenses and lost earnings regardless of who caused the crash, and the right to sue for non-economic damages is restricted unless the injury clears a threshold. Add-on states require or offer personal injury protection but restrict nothing: the coverage is added without any limitation on suing. Choice no-fault states let the policyholder pick which of the two systems applies to them.

Counting them is less simple than it looks, because the hybrids have to sit somewhere. Across the 51 jurisdictions tracked here, 13 run no-fault, choice no-fault or a hybrid election and the rest are at-fault or add-on. The District of Columbia is the genuine hybrid: the injured party elects after the accident, inside a window fixed by statute, rather than when the policy was bought.

Verbal and monetary thresholds

A verbal threshold describes the injury in words: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, fracture, permanent loss of a body function, or a disability lasting a stated proportion of the days following the accident. Clearing it is a question of fact about the injury, argued case by case.

A monetary threshold names a dollar figure of medical expense that has to be exceeded before a suit for non-economic damages is available. The amounts differ by state, they are set in statute, and they are not indexed, so they erode in real terms every year they go unamended. Each state page here carries its own threshold type and amount cited to the statute.

Some states apply both kinds, and the interaction matters: clearing either may be enough, or the statute may require the monetary figure only for particular categories of claim. Reducing a state to the word no-fault tells a reader almost nothing about what they could actually recover.

The three mistakes that get published most

Florida has no dollar tort threshold. Its threshold is purely verbal, resting on permanent injury, significant scarring or disfigurement, or death. The dollar figure quoted against Florida in most articles is its personal injury protection coverage amount, which is a completely different thing: one is how much the policy pays, the other is what has to be true before a lawsuit is available at all.

Pennsylvania defaults to full tort, not limited tort. A buyer who makes no election is conclusively presumed by statute to have chosen the full tort alternative, which preserves the unrestricted right to sue. Published summaries routinely state the reverse.

Choice mechanisms default in opposite directions in neighbouring states. In New Jersey the policyholder opts in to full tort, so the default is the restricted right to sue. In Pennsylvania the policyholder opts in to limited tort, so the default is the unrestricted right. Kentucky differs again: no-fault applies unless the driver opts out, the rejection must be filed with the department on a prescribed form, and rejecting the system forfeits the personal injury protection benefits along with the restriction.

Florida has not repealed personal injury protection

A repeal bill was filed in the 2026 Florida legislative session and died in the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on 13 March 2026. The statute requiring personal injury protection stands unamended and no repeal has taken effect.

The proposed repeal carried an effective date of 1 July 2026, and articles written while the bill was live now read as though that date arrived and the change happened. It did not. Anyone reading that Florida’s no-fault system ended in the middle of 2026 is reading a forecast that failed, and this site states the negative plainly rather than staying silent and letting the error stand.

Questions

How many no-fault states are there?

Of the 51 jurisdictions tracked here, 13 run no-fault, choice no-fault or a hybrid post-accident election. Published counts differ because add-on states and the hybrid are classified inconsistently from one source to the next.

Did Florida repeal PIP?

No. The 2026 repeal bill died in committee on 13 March 2026 and the statute is unamended, so personal injury protection remains compulsory in Florida.

Is Pennsylvania a limited tort state?

Pennsylvania offers limited tort as an option a buyer opts in to. A policyholder who makes no election is conclusively presumed by statute to have chosen full tort, so full tort is the default rather than the exception.