"No-fault." Maybe a nurse says it first, then an adjuster. Maybe even a friend. But nobody stops to explain the phrase, and then you are left guessing while the bills start arriving.
Here is the short version: no-fault is insurance that pays your medical bills and part of your lost wages after a car accident. It pays regardless of who caused the crash. It comes from the insurance on the car you were in, not from the other driver.
It is not a lawsuit or an admission of anything. It is a benefit you already paid for. But it has a strict deadline, and missing it can cost you everything the system owes you.
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What no-fault actually is
New York requires every registered car to carry Personal Injury Protection, usually called "PIP" or no-fault coverage. The rules live in Article 51 of the Insurance Law, starting at Insurance Law § 5102.
The logic is practical. Injured people need treatment and a paycheck now. Sorting out blame takes months, so the law splits the two questions. Your own side's insurance pays basic benefits right away, and fault gets decided later, if a lawsuit ever happens.
No-fault covers drivers, passengers, and pedestrians or cyclists hit by a car. It generally does not cover motorcyclists, which surprises many riders.
Which insurance company pays
This trips up almost everyone. The no-fault claim goes to the insurer for the vehicle you occupied, not the other driver's company.
If you were driving your own car, your own policy pays. If you were a passenger, the policy on that car pays. If you were walking or biking and a car hit you, that car's insurer pays. If the car that hit you fled or had no insurance, your own household auto policy may respond. The Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation, or MVAIC, exists as a backstop for people with no policy in the household.
Filing with your own carrier does not raise your rates for a crash you did not cause. It does not mean you are blaming yourself, it's simply how the system routes the bills.
What no-fault pays
Basic no-fault provides up to $50,000 per person in combined benefits. Within that limit, it pays:
Medical treatment. Hospital bills, doctors, physical therapy, prescriptions, and medically necessary care related to the crash.
Lost wages. 80% of your earnings, up to $2,000 per month, for up to three years from the accident date.
Other reasonable expenses. Up to $25 per day for necessities like transportation to medical appointments and household help, generally for one year.
A $2,000 death benefit, paid on top of the $50,000, if the crash is fatal.
What no-fault never pays is pain and suffering. Nothing in the $50,000 compensates you for what the injury did to your life. That money can only come from a separate claim against the at-fault driver.
The 30-day deadline decides everything
You must file the no-fault application, called an NF-2, with the correct insurer within 30 days of the accident itself.
If you file late, the carrier can deny every benefit: every hospital bill, every therapy session, every wage check. Late filing is excused only in narrow circumstances with written justification. Do not count on an exception.
The clock runs while you are hurting, replacing a wrecked car, and fielding calls. More injured New Yorkers lose benefits this way than any other. Other deadlines follow close behind. We cover them in "what arrives in the weeks after a New York crash."
No-fault is only half the system
No-fault handles bills and wages. It says nothing about pain and suffering. For that, New York lets you sue the at-fault driver, but only if your injury meets the serious injury threshold in Insurance Law § 5102(d).
The statute lists the qualifying categories: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member, and significant limitation of use of a body function or system.
A broken bone qualifies on its own. Soft-tissue injuries can qualify, but they require careful, consistent medical documentation of limitation. Gaps in treatment do real damage here. If you stop going to the doctor, the record stops showing the injury.
One more current rule matters. Under CPLR § 1411, in motor vehicle cases filed on or after May 26, 2026, a claimant whose fault exceeds the combined fault of the defendants recovers nothing. Fault below that line reduces the recovery proportionally. The fault record starts with the police report and early statements, so those now carry real weight.
The clocks beyond 30 days
Three more deadlines sit behind the no-fault application.
A lawsuit for your injuries generally must start within three years of the crash under CPLR § 214. A wrongful death claim has two years under EPTL § 5-4.1.
If a city, county, or state vehicle was involved, a Notice of Claim is usually required within 90 days under General Municipal Law § 50-e. That window closes fast and catches people off guard.
If the other driver was uninsured or fled, uninsured motorist claims under your own policy carry their own notice requirements, often 90 days. Hit-and-run cases depend heavily on prompt police reporting.
What to do if you're in a crash
Keep it simple to start. Get the NF-2 application from the correct insurer and file it within 30 days. Go to the doctor, describe every symptom, and keep every appointment. Save the police report number, photos, and the names of witnesses. Keep receipts for prescriptions, transportation, and anything the crash forced you to spend.
Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer before you understand your situation. You owe them nothing, and early statements get measured against your case later.
If you were hurt while driving for work, a workers' compensation claim may run alongside no-fault, and the two interact. The same goes for third-party claims generally, explained in "when you can sue beyond workers' comp."
How Schwartzapfel Holbrook approaches no-fault and the claims behind it
Think of the $50,000 as a starting point. In the cases we take, the firm files the no-fault paperwork on time and tracks the carrier's payments and denials. Then it evaluates every layer of coverage behind the basic benefits: the at-fault driver's liability policy, SUM coverage on household policies, and any commercial or employer policies the facts support.
Schwartzapfel Holbrook accepts a limited number of serious injury cases across New York City, Nassau County, and Suffolk County. Each one is built for trial from day one, because that preparation shapes the case's value long before any courtroom.
