Is Arizona a No-Fault State? No, and the Difference Matters

Arizona is an at-fault state. The driver who caused the crash, through their liability insurance, is responsible for the damage. There is no mandatory personal injury protection stepping in first regardless of blame.

What no-fault would have meant

In a genuine no-fault state, your own policy pays your initial medical expenses and a portion of lost income no matter who caused the crash, and you can only step outside that system by meeting a threshold, usually a defined level of injury or a dollar amount of bills.

About a dozen states work that way. Arizona is not one of them, and people moving from Florida, Michigan, New York or New Jersey often carry the wrong assumptions with them for years.

What at-fault actually means day to day

Nobody pays anything until fault is sorted out, and fault is decided by an adjuster working for the company that would be writing the cheque. That is the practical consequence people feel first. Your medical bills start arriving immediately and the liability claim resolves months later.

That gap is what MedPay exists to fill. It is optional coverage on your own policy, commonly sold in $1,000 to $5,000 increments, and it pays your medical expenses regardless of fault. Most Arizona drivers who have it do not know they have it. Check the declarations page rather than assuming.

Fault is not all or nothing

Arizona uses pure comparative negligence under A.R.S. § 12-2505. Fault gets divided as percentages and your recovery is reduced by your share, with no cutoff at which recovery stops. Being partly responsible reduces the number rather than ending the claim.

This is a minority rule. Most states cut off recovery at 50% or 51%, which is why so much general advice on the internet describes a cliff that does not exist here.

Health insurance is not a substitute

People assume their health plan makes all this academic. It pays, but it pays subject to deductibles and network rules, and then it usually claims reimbursement out of any settlement you eventually receive.

So health coverage moves the timing rather than the cost. What it does not cover at all is lost income, which in an at-fault state waits on the liability claim like everything else.

Minimum limits are the real gap

Arizona requires $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident in bodily injury liability. A single serious injury exhausts that quickly, and plenty of drivers carry nothing more than the minimum.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy is what covers the difference. Insurers must offer it in writing and you can reject it in writing, which means a meaningful number of people rejected it years ago and have no memory of doing so.

What to check on your own policy tonight

Whether you carry MedPay and at what limit. Whether you carry uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage and at what limit. Whether those limits match your liability limits, because they frequently do not.

The two-year limitation period under A.R.S. § 12-542 governs the lawsuit. Your own policy’s notice requirements for a UM claim run on a different and usually shorter clock.