Delaware Car Accident Laws: Fault, Insurance, and Deadlines

Delaware car accident laws follow a modified comparative negligence rule: you can recover compensation as long as you were not more at fault than the other driver or drivers combined. Every registered vehicle has to carry liability insurance and personal injury protection, crashes with $2,000 or more in property damage on a public highway must be reported, and you have two years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit.

How Fault Is Decided

Delaware uses modified comparative negligence. Your share of blame reduces your compensation by the same percentage, so a jury that finds you 20 percent at fault on $100,000 in damages awards you $80,000.¹

The cutoff is 50 percent. You can still recover if your fault equals exactly half, but once your share exceeds the other party’s negligence (or the combined negligence of all defendants), you recover nothing. That’s why liability fights get sharp around the midpoint. The difference between 50 and 51 percent is the difference between a reduced check and zero.¹

Fault gets built from police reports, witness accounts, photographs, and sometimes accident reconstruction. Insurance adjusters run their own investigations, and their conclusions don’t always match what the officer wrote. If you disagree with the insurer, the fight can end up in front of a jury, which assigns the percentages.

Insurance You Must Carry

Every vehicle registered in Delaware has to carry liability coverage, personal injury protection, and (unless you reject it in writing) uninsured motorist coverage.

Liability

Liability pays for injuries and property damage you cause to someone else. The minimums are $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 for all bodily injuries in a single accident, and $10,000 for property damage.² These are legal floors. A serious crash can run through $50,000 in medical bills alone, and anything above your limit comes out of your own pocket.

Personal Injury Protection

Personal injury protection pays your own medical bills, lost earnings, and related expenses after a crash, regardless of who caused it. Delaware’s minimum is $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident, with funeral expenses capped at $5,000 per person. You have two years from the accident to claim PIP benefits.³

Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage

Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is automatic in every Delaware liability policy unless you specifically reject it in writing on a form the insurer provides. If you never signed a rejection, you have UM coverage whether you knew it or not.⁴

Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage is different. Insurers must offer it up to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident, but UIM limits can’t exceed your own bodily injury liability limits. If the driver who hit you doesn’t carry enough to cover your injuries, UIM fills the gap.⁴

What You Have to Do After a Crash

You have to report a collision to the police agency with jurisdiction over the location if any of these are true:

Someone was injured or killed.
Property damage looks like $2,000 or more and the crash happened on a public highway.
A driver appears impaired by alcohol or drugs.

The report has to be made immediately. For smaller crashes that don’t hit any of those thresholds, reporting is optional.⁵

Whether or not a police report is required, every driver involved in a crash that damages someone else’s property has to stop, give their name, address, and registration number, and show a driver’s license to the other parties. If anyone was hurt, the state’s injury-reporting duties apply on top of that.⁵

Build your own record while you’re still at the scene. Photograph the vehicle positions before anything moves, take close-ups of the damage, note road and weather conditions, and get contact information from witnesses. Your insurance policy will have its own notice deadline too, often 24 to 48 hours, and missing it can hand the insurer a reason to deny the claim.

Filing a Claim and the Two-Year Deadline

You have two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit in Delaware.⁶ Property damage claims carry the same two-year deadline.⁷ Miss it and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case, no matter how strong it is. Two years sounds like a lot until treatment stretches out, negotiations drag, and the clock is suddenly almost gone.

Most claims start with an insurance demand rather than a lawsuit. You file with the at-fault driver’s liability insurer, or with your own PIP or UM/UIM carrier. The insurer investigates, assigns fault percentages, and makes an offer. First offers are usually low.

Delaware requires insurers to handle claims in good faith. They can’t unreasonably delay, lowball without justification, or deny a valid claim without explanation. If you think an insurer is acting in bad faith, you can push back through mediation, arbitration, or by filing suit.

What You Can Recover

A successful personal injury claim can cover:

Medical expenses, including hospital stays, surgeries, rehabilitation, medication, and future treatment.
Lost income, plus diminished future earning capacity if the injury is permanent.
Pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of daily activities.
Property damage, including vehicle repair or replacement and damaged personal items.

Comparative negligence applies to every dollar. A $150,000 award with a 30 percent fault finding pays out $105,000. At 51 percent or more, it pays nothing.¹

If Someone Was Killed in the Crash

When a car accident kills someone, Delaware law lets surviving family members file a wrongful death lawsuit. The two-year statute of limitations runs from the date of death.⁷ The primary beneficiaries are the deceased person’s spouse, parents, children, and siblings. If none of them exist, any blood or marriage relative may bring the action.⁸

Recoverable damages include lost financial support, loss of household and parental services, funeral expenses (capped at $7,000 or the amount set under a separate state employee benefit statute, whichever is higher), mental anguish, and punitive damages where the death resulted from intentional, reckless, or willfully dangerous conduct. Punitive damages must be awarded separately from compensatory damages, and the total recovery is divided among beneficiaries in the shares the verdict directs.⁸

Criminal Penalties That Can Run Alongside a Civil Claim

Reckless driving in Delaware carries a fine between $100 and $300 and up to 30 days in jail for a first offense. A subsequent offense within three years brings a $300 to $1,000 fine and 30 to 60 days of jail. These sit on top of any civil liability to crash victims.⁹

DUI is heavier. A first-time conviction can mean up to 12 months of incarceration plus mandatory substance abuse education. A second offense within five years carries a minimum $575 fine and 60 days to 18 months in prison, with the minimum jail term not subject to suspension. A third offense within five years is a Class G felony, with a $1,000 to $3,000 fine and one to two years in prison, and the first three months can’t be suspended. License suspension or revocation comes with convictions at every level, and a DUI conviction also strengthens the civil case against the driver because it reads as strong evidence of negligence.

Taxes and Liens on a Settlement

Compensation for physical injuries or physical sickness is generally not taxable, whether it comes from a verdict or a settlement, and whether paid in a lump sum or installments. The exception: if you deducted related medical expenses on a prior return and got a tax benefit, the portion of the settlement that reimburses those deducted expenses is taxable.¹⁰

Emotional distress money tied to a physical injury is tax-free. Emotional distress money that isn’t tied to a physical injury is taxable, reduced only by any medical expenses you paid for the distress and haven’t already deducted. Punitive damages are always taxable. Insurance payments for vehicle repairs or a totaled car are generally not taxable as long as the payment doesn’t exceed what you originally paid for the vehicle.¹¹

Before you spend a settlement, check whether anyone has a lien on it. Most health insurance policies include subrogation clauses that let the insurer recoup what it paid for your accident-related care once you recover. Medicare and Medicaid have similar federal reimbursement rights. Employer-sponsored plans governed by ERISA often demand full repayment regardless of how much you actually collected. These liens can sometimes be negotiated down, but ignoring them can lead the insurer or government agency to come after you directly.

1
Justia. Delaware Code 10-8132 – Comparative Negligence
2
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 21 – Motor Vehicle Liability Policy
3
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 21-2118 – Requirement of Insurance
4
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 18-3902 – Uninsured Vehicle Coverage
5
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 21-4203 – Duty to Report Collisions
6
Justia. Delaware Code 10-8119 – Personal Injuries
7
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 10-8107 – Actions Subject to 2-Year Limitation
8
Justia. Delaware Code 10-3724 – Action for Wrongful Death
9
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 21-4175 – Reckless Driving
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness
11
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4345 – Settlement Income