Car accident lawyers for New Jersey and New York

One moment you are driving to work or picking up your kids. The next you are dealing with pain, missed paychecks, a damaged car, and calls from insurance adjusters.

New Jersey and New York both use no-fault insurance systems, but the rules are very different. Those rules decide who pays your medical bills, whether you can sue for pain and suffering, and how long you have to act. This page explains how a car accident claim works in each state, what insurance companies look for, and what you can do now to protect your claim.

If your crash involved a commercial vehicle, a motorcycle, or an Uber or Lyft, also read our pages on truck accidents, motorcycle accidents and rideshare accidents. Each of those cases has rules of its own.

Who pays your medical bills first

In both New Jersey and New York, your first medical bills after a crash are usually paid by an auto insurance policy under the no-fault system, not by the driver who hit you. Many people are surprised by this. The at-fault driver’s liability insurance comes into play later, when you make a claim for the losses that no-fault benefits do not cover.

Personal injury protection in New Jersey

New Jersey auto policies include personal injury protection, usually called PIP. PIP pays medical expenses for covered people no matter who caused the crash. The standard medical expense limit is $250,000 per person per accident, although your policy may carry a lower limit or other options chosen when it was purchased.¹

Your own PIP coverage is primary. If you have a New Jersey auto policy, your own insurer pays your PIP benefits, even if the other driver was entirely at fault. If you do not have your own policy but live with a relative who does, that relative’s PIP is generally the coverage that responds.¹

PIP can also protect people who are not named on any policy, such as passengers using an insured car with permission and pedestrians struck by an insured car.¹ Our New Jersey PIP guide explains the coverage options in more detail.

No-fault benefits in New York

New York’s system is called no-fault, and its benefits are also known as personal injury protection. No-fault pays “basic economic loss” of up to $50,000 per person. That includes necessary medical expenses, lost earnings of up to $2,000 per month for up to three years, and up to $25 per day for other reasonable and necessary expenses for one year after the accident.⁷

The deadlines are short. Written notice of the claim must reach the insurer as soon as reasonably practicable, and in no event more than 30 days after the accident. Proof of medical expenses generally must be submitted within 45 days after treatment, and lost wage claims within 90 days after the loss.⁶ The regulation excuses late proof of claim when there is clear and reasonable justification, but no one should plan around that exception. Our New York no-fault guide walks through the forms.

When you can sue for pain and suffering

PIP and no-fault pay for medical care and part of your lost income. They do not pay for pain, suffering, emotional distress, or the activities an injury takes away from you. Those losses are called non-economic damages, and you recover them through a claim against the people who caused the crash. New Jersey and New York both put a legal gate in front of that claim.

New Jersey’s limitation on lawsuit option

When you buy a New Jersey auto policy, you choose a tort option. The “no limitation on lawsuit” option keeps your full right to sue for pain and suffering caused by someone else’s negligence.² The “limitation on lawsuit” option, often called the verbal threshold, costs less but restricts that right.

Under the limitation on lawsuit option, you can recover non-economic damages only if the crash caused at least one of these six kinds of injury.²

• Death
• Dismemberment
• Significant disfigurement or significant scarring
• Displaced fractures
• Loss of a fetus
• A permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement

An injury is permanent when the body part or organ has not healed to function normally and will not heal to function normally with further medical treatment.² The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that a person who proves one of the six categories does not also have to prove that the injury had a serious impact on their life.³

The statute also requires a doctor’s certification. Within 60 days after the defendant answers your complaint, you must provide a certification from a treating physician, or a board-certified physician you were referred to, stating under penalty of perjury that you sustained a qualifying injury. The certification must be based on objective clinical evidence, not only on your complaints of pain. A court may grant one additional 60-day extension for good cause.²

Which tort option applies to you generally depends on the policy that covers you, and there are exceptions. Our verbal threshold guide explains the option in more depth.

New York’s serious injury threshold

In New York, when one “covered person” sues another over a motor vehicle accident, there is no right to recover non-economic loss unless the injured person has a “serious injury.”⁸ Covered persons include the owners, drivers and passengers of insured vehicles, and pedestrians injured by them.⁷

Under the current law, a serious injury is a personal injury that results in one or more of the following.⁷

• Death
• Dismemberment
• Significant disfigurement
• A 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
• Significant limitation of use of a body function or system

New York narrowed this list in 2026. For lawsuits started on or after May 26, 2026, the former category for a non-permanent injury that kept you from substantially all of your usual daily activities for 90 of the first 180 days is gone.⁹ The same law requires the jury (or the judge, in a non-jury trial) to decide who was at fault before it decides whether an injury is serious.⁸

The proof has to be objective. For the limitation categories, New York’s highest court has explained that a doctor may show a serious injury with a measured loss of range of motion, or with a qualitative assessment that has an objective basis and compares your limitations to normal function. Numerical measurements taken right after the accident are not required.¹⁰ Our serious injury threshold guide goes deeper.

Who can be held responsible

The driver who caused the crash is the obvious defendant, but often not the only one. Each responsible party may have separate insurance, so finding all of them can make a real difference when injuries are serious.

• The at-fault driver. Speeding, distraction, running a light, following too closely and impaired driving are common causes of crashes.
• The vehicle owner. In New York, the owner of a vehicle is generally responsible for injuries caused by the negligence of anyone using or operating it with the owner’s permission, express or implied.¹¹ Some exceptions apply, so who owned the car matters.
• An employer. If the driver was working at the time, for example making deliveries or driving a company vehicle, the employer may be responsible for the driver’s carelessness.
• A bar or restaurant. In New Jersey, a licensed alcohol server can be liable if it served a visibly intoxicated person, or served a minor it knew or reasonably should have known was underage, and that service was a proximate cause of a foreseeable injury.¹⁴ New York’s Dram Shop Act lets an injured person sue anyone who caused or contributed to a driver’s intoxication by unlawfully selling alcohol to that driver.¹⁵
• A government entity. A dangerous road design, a broken signal or an unmarked hazard may point to a public entity. Claims against public entities have special notice rules and much shorter deadlines, explained in our notice of claim guide.
• A manufacturer. Defective brakes, airbags, tires or other parts can support a product liability claim.

Sometimes the at-fault driver has no insurance, leaves the scene, or carries only the minimum coverage the law requires. In that situation your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage may help. We explain how those claims work on our uninsured and underinsured motorist page.

How fault affects your recovery

Insurance companies often argue that you share the blame. New Jersey and New York handle shared fault differently, and New York changed its rule for many car cases in 2026.

In New Jersey, you can still recover if your share of fault is not greater than the defendant’s share, or the combined share of all the defendants. Your damages are then reduced by your percentage of fault.⁴ If a jury finds you 30 percent at fault, your award is reduced by 30 percent. If it finds you 51 percent at fault, you recover nothing.

New York has long followed pure comparative fault, meaning your own fault reduces your damages but does not bar recovery.¹² That is still the rule for many kinds of cases. But for personal injury actions governed by the no-fault law (Article 51 of the Insurance Law) that are started on or after May 26, 2026, you cannot recover if your share of fault is greater than the share of the person you are suing, or the combined share of everyone you are suing.^{12 9}

Our comparative negligence guide has more examples.

Deadlines you cannot miss

In New Jersey, a personal injury lawsuit generally must be filed within two years after the claim accrues, which for a car crash is usually the date of the accident.⁵ In New York, the general deadline is three years.¹³

Other deadlines arrive much sooner.

• The New York no-fault notice is due within 30 days of the accident.⁶
• Under New Jersey’s limitation on lawsuit option, the physician certification is due within 60 days after the defendant’s answer.²
• Claims against towns, counties, states and public authorities require a notice of claim on a short schedule.
• Claims involving children or a death follow their own rules.

These deadlines have exceptions and traps, and the right date depends on your facts. Our statute of limitations guide covers them in more detail.

Evidence that makes or breaks a car accident case

You have to prove both how the crash happened and how it hurt you. Some of the most important evidence disappears quickly.

• The police crash report. It records the drivers, vehicles, insurance information, witnesses and the officer’s observations. It is a starting point, not the final word, and mistakes in it can be challenged.
• Event data recorders. Many vehicles have a module, often called a black box, that can record speed, braking and seatbelt use in the seconds around a crash. That data can be lost if the vehicle is repaired, sold for salvage or crushed.
• Dashcam and surveillance video. Businesses, homes, buses and traffic cameras may have captured the crash. Many systems record over old footage on a rolling basis, sometimes within days.
• Phone records. If distraction is suspected, the other driver’s phone records can show calls, texts or data use at the moment of impact. Getting them usually requires a subpoena or court order once a lawsuit is filed.
• Photos, witnesses and medical records. Photos of the vehicles, the scene and your injuries, the names of witnesses, and consistent medical records tie the crash to your injuries.

If you are reading this soon after a crash, these steps help protect your claim.

1. Get medical care right away and tell every provider how you were hurt.
2. Report the crash to the police and write down the report number.
3. Photograph the scene, the vehicles and your injuries if you can do so safely.
4. Notify your own auto insurer, and in New York file your no-fault application within 30 days.
5. Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer before getting legal advice.
6. Ask a lawyer to send preservation letters for video, vehicle data and other evidence.

Our after a car accident checklist is a printable version of these steps.

Damages you may be able to recover

Damages are the money paid to make up for what the crash took from you. Depending on the facts and the thresholds above, they can include the following.

• Medical expenses beyond applicable PIP or no-fault coverage, including recoverable future surgery and therapy
• Lost wages beyond what no-fault pays, and loss of future earning capacity
• Pain and suffering, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life
• Disfigurement and scarring
• A spouse’s claim for loss of companionship and services
• Damage to your vehicle and other property

In a New York case between covered persons, you cannot recover basic economic loss, which is the category no-fault covers. You can pursue economic losses above that amount.⁸ Medicare, Medicaid, some health plans and others may claim a share of a settlement through liens, which our settlement liens guide explains.

How insurance companies handle car accident claims

Knowing the usual insurance playbook helps you avoid mistakes.

• Early, low offers made before the full extent of your injuries is known.
• Recorded statements used later to argue that you were at fault or not really hurt.
• Gaps in treatment used to argue that something other than the crash caused your injuries.
• Pre-existing conditions blamed for your pain, even when the crash made an old condition worse.
• Defense medical examinations by doctors the insurer chooses, whose reports may downplay your injuries.
• Threshold attacks arguing that your injury is not permanent in New Jersey or not serious in New York.
• Social media monitoring for photos that seem to contradict your injuries.

Our guide to talking to insurance adjusters covers what to say and what to avoid.

How Parra Klein handles car accident cases

Parra Klein, LLC represents people injured in car crashes throughout New Jersey and New York. Our work on a car accident case usually includes the following.

• Investigating the crash, obtaining the police report, and finding witnesses and video before it is lost
• Sending preservation letters for vehicle data, surveillance footage and phone records
• Identifying every source of insurance, including the at-fault driver’s policy, owner and employer coverage, and your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
• Helping you open your PIP or no-fault claim on time and dealing with the carrier when benefits are delayed or denied
• Working with your treating doctors so your records document the injury with objective findings, which matters for the New Jersey certification and the New York serious injury threshold
• Handling communications with adjusters so you can focus on getting better
• Preparing each case for trial from the start, so it is ready if a fair settlement is not offered

Our attorneys Arlene M. Parra, Brian A. Klein and Juan Carlos Reyes are each admitted in both New Jersey and New York, which helps when a crash crosses state lines. Our cross-border accidents guide explains why that matters. Arlene Parra and Juan Carlos Reyes are fluent in Spanish, and we serve clients in Spanish (se habla español).

We have offices in Elmwood Park and Union City, New Jersey, and in Manhattan, and we offer remote consultations. Consultations are free, and we work on a contingency fee, so there is no attorney’s fee unless we recover money for you.