PIP and UIM Coverage in Washington: How Your Own Auto Policy Pays After a Crash

After a car crash, the first insurance question is often about the other driver. In Washington, two coverages on your own automobile policy can pay you as well: personal injury protection, called PIP, and underinsured motorist coverage. The statute uses "underinsured" both for a driver with no liability insurance and for a driver whose liability limits are smaller than the damages. Those coverages are not the at-fault driver's liability policy, and they do not pay the same things.

This article explains what each one pays under the current statutes, how a written rejection can remove one or both, and the steps and pitfalls that follow a crash. Our personal injury practice page explains how we approach these matters.

What Personal Injury Protection Pays

RCW 48.22.005 defines personal injury protection as the benefits described in that section and in RCW 48.22.085 through 48.22.100. Payments are limited to the actual amount of loss or expense incurred. The definitions do not condition payment on a finding that another driver was at fault, and they do not add a benefit measured by pain.

Medical and hospital benefits pay all reasonable and necessary expenses incurred by or on behalf of the insured for injuries from an automobile accident, for health care services provided by persons licensed under Title 18 RCW, including pharmaceuticals, prosthetic devices, eyeglasses, and necessary ambulance, hospital, and professional nursing service. They are payable for expenses incurred within three years of the accident.

Income continuation benefits pay loss of income from work because of that bodily injury, less income earned during the benefit period. PIP combined with workers' compensation, disability insurance, or other income continuation benefits may not exceed 85 percent of weekly income from work. The period begins fourteen days after the accident and ends at the earliest of the date the insured can reasonably do the duties of his or her usual occupation, fifty-four weeks from the accident, or death.

Loss of services benefits reimburse payment to people who are not members of the household, for services the insured would usually have done for the household without pay, if the services are actually rendered. The maximum is $40 per day. Payment ends at the earliest of the date the insured can reasonably perform those services, fifty-two weeks from the accident, or death.

Who Is Covered, and What an Insurer May Leave Out

An insured is the named insured, including a spouse who lives in the same household, or a resident of the household related by blood, marriage, or adoption, or the named insured's ward, foster child, or stepchild. An insured is also someone injured by accident while occupying or using the insured automobile with the named insured's permission, or a pedestrian accidentally struck by that automobile. Occupying means in or upon or entering into or alighting from.

Automobile, in this chapter, means a passenger car as defined in RCW 46.04.382 that is registered or principally garaged in Washington: every motor vehicle except motorcycles and motor-driven cycles, designed to carry ten passengers or fewer and used to transport persons. The definition also excludes a farm-type tractor or similar off-road equipment, a vehicle on rails or crawler-treads, a vehicle used as a residence, a motor home, and a moped.

RCW 48.22.090 says an insurer is not required to provide PIP in listed situations. That permits the omission. It does not mean every policy excludes them. The list includes intentional self-injury; organized racing or practice for it; war; the hazardous properties of nuclear material; and felony use of an automobile. It also includes the named insured or a relative occupying a vehicle the named insured owns, or that is furnished for the named insured's regular use, and a relative occupying a vehicle the relative owns or that is furnished for the relative's regular use, if the vehicle is not on the declaration page.

The Offer, the Written Rejection, and the Benefit Amounts

PIP must be offered. It does not have to be purchased. RCW 48.22.085 says no new automobile liability policy, and no renewal of such a policy, may be issued unless PIP is offered as optional coverage. A named insured may reject it in writing. The rejection binds all levels of coverage and every person who might otherwise have been insured, and it carries forward to a supplemental, renewal, or replacement policy unless a named insured later requests PIP in writing.

RCW 48.22.095 requires this minimum offer for each insured: medical and hospital benefits of $10,000; a funeral expense benefit of $2,000; income continuation benefits of $10,000, subject to a limit of $200 per week; and loss of services benefits of $5,000, subject to a limit of $200 per week.

If a named insured asks, RCW 48.22.100 requires a higher offer: medical and hospital benefits of $35,000, a funeral expense benefit of $2,000, income continuation benefits of $35,000 subject to a limit of $700 per week, and loss of services benefits of $14,600. They are not the value of a liability or UIM claim. The $40 per day loss-of-services maximum in the definition sits beside the weekly and total limits in the offer statutes. The declarations page shows the limits on a particular policy.

What UIM Covers, Including an Uninsured Driver

RCW 48.22.030 uses one definition for what people often split into UM and UIM. An underinsured motor vehicle is one as to which no bodily injury or property damage liability bond or policy applies at the time of the accident, or as to which the sum of the applicable liability limits is less than the damages the covered person is legally entitled to recover. The comparison is to those damages, not to the injured person's UIM limit. The same section also requires coverage for hit-and-run vehicles and phantom vehicles.

The coverage belongs on a new or renewal liability policy for a motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in Washington. It protects insured persons who are legally entitled to recover damages from those owners or operators because of bodily injury, death, or property damage. It is not required on an umbrella or other excess policy, while operating or occupying a motorcycle or motor-driven cycle, or while operating or occupying a vehicle owned by, or available for the regular use of, the named insured or a family member if that vehicle is not insured under the policy's liability coverage. A motorcycle insurer must give prospective insureds information about the coverage and let a named insured who bought liability coverage reject UIM in writing.

Except for property damage, UIM must equal the insured's third party liability coverage unless all or part is rejected in writing. Property damage coverage need only be issued together with bodily injury or death coverage. It means physical damage to the insured motor vehicle unless the policy specifically covers the contents or other property damage.

How That Differs from the At-Fault Driver's Liability Policy

Liability coverage on the other driver's policy is a different contract. RCW 46.30.020 requires a driver of a vehicle that must be registered in Washington to carry liability limits of at least the amounts in RCW 46.29.090, or another form of financial responsibility RCW 46.30.020 allows. Those amounts are not less than $25,000 for bodily injury or death of one person in one accident, not less than $50,000 for two or more persons, and not less than $10,000 for property damage. That policy pays because the owner or operator is legally responsible, and only up to its limits. When several people are hurt, the $50,000 per-accident bodily injury floor can be used up even if each person's harm is larger than one share.

UIM is the coverage your own insurer must offer, generally matching your own liability limits, for damages you are legally entitled to recover from an underinsured, hit-and-run, or phantom motorist. PIP pays the defined benefits without that fault finding. Because UIM depends on damages you are legally entitled to recover, your own share of fault can reduce both the liability claim and the chance that the other vehicle meets the underinsured definition. How Washington divides fault is explained in Washington's pure comparative fault rule.

A named insured or spouse may reject UIM for bodily injury or death, or for property damage, in writing. The rejection stays off supplemental and renewal policies unless coverage is later requested in writing. That written-rejection rule applies only to the original issuance of policies issued after July 24, 1983, not to a renewal or replacement policy. Property-damage UIM below the liability property-damage limit does not require a written rejection. The policy may set one accident limit regardless of how many people or vehicles are involved, and it may cap other similar insurance under other policies at the higher of the applicable limits. A property-damage deductible may not exceed $300 for a hit-and-run or phantom vehicle, or $100 in other cases. Coverage applies even if another person caused the harm on purpose, unless the insurer shows the covered person intended the event. Accident means an occurrence unexpected and unintended from the covered person's standpoint.

How the Three Coverages Meet

PIP, liability coverage, and UIM can all be open at once. PIP looks at insured status and a defined benefit inside its limit and time rule, and it can pay medical bills while fault is disputed. Liability coverage looks at legal responsibility and stops at that policy's limits. UIM looks at whether you are legally entitled to recover from an underinsured, hit-and-run, or phantom motorist, and whether the coverage is still on your policy.

The PIP statutes do not subtract PIP payments from UIM. RCW 48.22.030 lets a policy cap other similar insurance at the higher of the applicable limits. That sentence is about similar coverage under other policies. It is not a direction to reduce UIM by the PIP medical benefit. Coordination, if any, is in the policy.

This example is hypothetical. It uses only statutory amounts. It is not a case result and does not predict any claim. Assume the at-fault driver has the $25,000 one-person bodily injury minimum, and you did not reject PIP or UIM. The minimum PIP medical offer is $10,000. If your own one-person liability limit is also $25,000, UIM bodily injury coverage is $25,000 unless you rejected all or part. PIP can pay reasonable and necessary medical expenses up to $10,000 for care incurred within three years, with no fault finding. If the damages you are legally entitled to recover exceed $25,000, the other vehicle is underinsured, because that liability limit is less than those damages, and UIM applies up to its limit. A written UIM rejection that was never withdrawn would leave the renewal without that coverage.

Phantom Vehicles, Insolvency, and Rideshare

A phantom vehicle causes injury, death, or property damage and never makes contact with the insured or the occupied vehicle. The facts must be corroborated by evidence other than the testimony of the insured or anyone else with a UIM claim from that crash, and the crash must be reported to law enforcement within seventy-two hours. If the covered person was the intended victim, the incident must be reported and the person must cooperate with the investigation.

RCW 48.22.040 treats a vehicle as underinsured when its liability insurer cannot pay within its limits because of insolvency, if your UIM was in effect and that insurer becomes insolvent within three years. An insurer may offer better terms. The UIM insurer that pays may recover, only to the extent of its payment, from the settlement or judgment and from the insolvent insurer's assets, not from that insurer's insured for amounts the insolvent insurer would have paid.

RCW 48.22.085 and RCW 48.22.030 allow an exclusion as provided in RCW 46.72B.180. A private passenger policy may drop PIP and UIM while a driver is logged in to a commercial transportation network or providing a prearranged ride. For that period the statute requires a commercial policy: bodily injury liability of not less than $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident, and $30,000 for property damage, before a ride is accepted; a $1,000,000 combined single limit during the ride; and UIM of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident while a passenger is in the vehicle. PIP during that commercial use is still required to the extent of RCW 48.22.085 and 48.22.095.

Steps That Follow from the Statutes

Read the declarations page, including any written rejection, before you assume PIP or UIM is on the policy.

Before you sign a release of the other driver, read the UIM section. The statute ties that coverage to damages you are legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator, and the policy may add conditions RCW 48.22.030 does not spell out.

How shared fault changes those damages is covered in Washington's pure comparative fault rule. To talk through how these coverages may apply, visit our personal injury practice page or contact us. Nelson Allen Walk & Scott, PLLC is located at 1103 Shaw Road, Puyallup, WA 98372, and can be reached at (253) 845-8895.

Written by Nathan D. Sukhia, Of Counsel.