Bodily Injury Limits, UM, SUM and MVAIC in New York

Bodily injury limits, UM, SUM and MVAIC

Authority: Vehicle and Traffic Law § 311(4)(a); Insurance Law §§ 3420(f), 5202, 5208; 11 NYCRR 60-2 (Regulation 35-D); L. 2017, ch. 490.

Establishing liability is only half of a New York case. The other half is finding coverage, and New York’s statutory minimums are low enough that this is often the harder half.

Bodily injury liability. The mandatory minimum under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 311 remains $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for injury, and $50,000 / $100,000 where the accident results in death, with $10,000 for property damage. These figures have not been raised in three decades. Bills to lift them to $50,000 / $100,000 have been introduced in recent sessions — Assembly Bill A5053 of the 2025-2026 session would amend § 311 to do so — but as of this writing they have not been enacted. A serious injury caused by a minimally insured driver routinely exhausts the policy before it addresses the loss.

Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is mandatory on every New York policy and responds when the at-fault vehicle carried no insurance, or in a hit-and-run where the vehicle is never identified. It is written at the statutory minimum unless increased.

Supplementary uninsured/underinsured motorist (SUM) coverage is the layer that matters most and the one most often under-purchased. SUM responds when the at-fault driver has some insurance but not enough, paying the difference between what you recover from them and your own SUM limit.

SUM now defaults to your own bodily injury limits

Chapter 490 of the Laws of 2017, implemented through the Eighth Amendment to 11 NYCRR 60-2 (Regulation 35-D), changed the default. For policies originally issued on or after June 16, 2018 (other than commercial risk policies), the insurer must provide SUM equal to the policy’s bodily injury liability limits unless the first named insured declines SUM or elects a lower amount on a written or electronic waiver form. The previous statutory ceiling of $250,000 per person / $500,000 per accident was removed. Checking whether a valid waiver exists is a standard first step — an invalid or missing waiver can mean more SUM coverage than the declarations page suggests.

SUM is offset, not additive

The maximum payable is the SUM limit reduced by the bodily injury payments received from or on behalf of any negligent party. A $100,000 SUM limit behind a $25,000 recovery yields $75,000, not $100,000. This offset structure is why matching SUM to a realistic exposure, rather than to the state minimum, is the single most valuable coverage decision a New York driver makes.

MVAIC is the backstop, and it has the shortest clock

The Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation covers a "qualified person" under Insurance Law § 5202 injured by an uninsured or unidentified vehicle where no other coverage responds. Under § 5208 a hit-and-run claimant must report the accident to police within 24 hours and file a sworn notice of intention with MVAIC within 90 days of the claim accruing. Both are strictly enforced, with limited relief: courts have treated the 24-hour rule as satisfied where the report was made "as soon as was reasonably possible" under § 5208(a)(2)(B), and have excused a late notice under § 5208(b)(2) where MVAIC had actual knowledge of the essential facts and suffered no prejudice. The claimant bears the initial burden of establishing qualified-person status.