Most people assume that car insurance can help them after a Kentucky collision. After all, drivers generally need to carry insurance to legally drive. Every motorist in Kentucky carries a combination of bodily injury and property damage liability coverage, and many drivers also carry no-fault personal injury protection (PIP) coverage.
After a collision, filing an insurance claim can help someone repair a damaged vehicle, pay for medical treatment and replace their lost wages. However, drivers may have questions about which policy actually applies after a collision. They know they are not at fault, but they may feel uncertain about how to navigate the state’s confusing insurance system.
Is Kentucky a no-fault or at-fault state for the purposes of an insurance claim after a crash?
Kentucky has complex insurance rules
In a no-fault insurance state, drivers make claims against their personal policies regardless of who was at fault for a crash. Most no-fault insurance programs specifically provide medical or bodily injury coverage, and that is the case in Kentucky. Drivers have the option of declining PIP coverage when they purchase insurance, but many motorists invest in this no-fault coverage to protect themselves.
In at-fault insurance states, the coverage of the driver who caused the collision pays for the damages generated by the crash. Kentucky falls in between those two. Drivers can use their own coverage in some cases for bodily injury losses. However, significant property damage losses almost always result in at-fault claims against the driver who caused the crash.
If someone has no-fault coverage, they can expect to pay more for the insurance. The trade-off is the peace of mind that comes from knowing one has baseline medical coverage regardless of the choices of the party at fault for the wreck. The investigation process after the crash could also be quicker because there is less focus on fault if each driver can use their own policy for coverage.
Those trying to determine what compensation they can obtain after a Kentucky collision often have to look at both their own policies and the policy covering the driver who caused the collision. An at-fault claim may be necessary even when PIP coverage if someone needs to replace or repair their vehicle.
