Pennsylvania Auto Insurance & Crash Law

VictimsGuide’s Pennsylvania library organizes the rules that can control a serious motor-vehicle claim: required liability insurance, first-party medical benefits, full-tort and limited-tort elections, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, stacking, policy interpretation, bad faith, employer and commercial coverage, government claims, comparative negligence, settlement and controlling case authority.

Pennsylvania rules to identify early

• Minimum coverage: Pennsylvania requires minimum liability coverage and at least $5,000 in first-party medical benefits.
• Tort election: full-tort versus limited-tort status can materially affect recovery for noneconomic damages, subject to statutory exceptions and serious-injury analysis.
• UM/UIM: coverage may be rejected or written at lower limits only through statutory forms, and stacking can materially change available recovery.
• Bad faith: 42 Pa.C.S. § 8371 provides a statutory bad-faith remedy separate from the underlying contract claim.
• Comparative negligence: Pennsylvania follows modified comparative negligence with recovery barred only when claimant fault exceeds 50%.

Preserve the declarations, first-party-benefit records, tort-election forms, UM/UIM selection or rejection forms, crash report, photographs, video and electronic evidence, and investigate employer, commercial, umbrella and excess coverage before signing a release.

Current-law review: September 17, 2026. Verify current Pennsylvania statutes, Insurance Department guidance, appellate authority and the policy actually issued before relying on this educational guide.