Uninsured motorist coverage in Arkansas is built into every auto liability policy by default: your insurer has to include uninsured motorist (UM) bodily injury protection unless you sign a written rejection, and it has to offer underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage on the same terms. UM pays your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering when the driver who hurt you had no liability insurance. UIM pays when that driver had some coverage but not enough. Together they shift the cost of someone else’s missing or inadequate insurance off you and onto your own carrier.
What UM Bodily Injury Coverage Does
UM bodily injury coverage applies when you’re hit by a driver who carries no liability insurance at all. It also kicks in when the at-fault driver’s insurer denies the claim or the policy has already been canceled. The coverage pays for your medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering, up to the limits on your policy.
Because Arkansas law builds this coverage into every auto liability policy, you have it unless you’ve affirmatively rejected it in writing. The minimum UM bodily injury limits mirror the state’s minimum liability limits: $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident. If you buy liability limits higher than that, your insurer has to offer UM coverage at those higher limits too. You can decline the higher UM limits, but that decision also has to be in writing.
How a Rejection Works
A written rejection of UM coverage, or of higher UM limits, carries forward. Once you’ve signed it, it stays in effect through every renewal, reinstatement, or replacement policy until you withdraw it in writing. Your insurer isn’t required to raise the subject again. That’s worth knowing if you took the cheapest possible policy years ago and haven’t looked at it since. The rejection you signed is probably still in force.
UM Property Damage Is a Separate Coverage
Arkansas insurers must also offer UM property damage coverage to anyone who buys UM bodily injury protection. This is what pays to repair or replace your vehicle after a crash with an uninsured driver.
UM property damage comes with a $200 deductible. That deductible drops to zero only when two conditions are both met: the same insurer covers your vehicle for both collision and UM property damage, and the other driver has been positively identified and is solely at fault. Identifying the other driver by itself isn’t enough if your collision coverage sits with a different company.
Your insurer isn’t required to offer UM property damage limits higher than the property damage liability limits already on your policy. If you carry $25,000 in property damage liability, that’s the ceiling. And as with the bodily injury side, once you reject UM property damage in writing, your insurer doesn’t have to offer it again unless you file a new application.
How Underinsured Motorist Coverage Fills the Gap
UIM coverage picks up where the at-fault driver’s insurance runs out. If someone with a $25,000 policy causes you $80,000 in injuries, their insurer pays $25,000, and your UIM coverage can help close the remaining gap up to your UIM limit.
Arkansas insurers must offer UIM on every private passenger auto policy, but you can reject it in writing, and that rejection carries forward the same way a UM rejection does. UIM minimum limits are the same $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident. One pairing rule matters: you can’t carry UIM without also carrying UM. If you’ve rejected UM, UIM isn’t available to you until you reinstate UM in writing.
The Arkansas Damages Method
Arkansas doesn’t reduce your UIM benefits dollar-for-dollar by what the at-fault driver’s insurance paid. The statute says UIM benefits can’t be reduced by the other driver’s coverage “except to the extent that the injured party would receive compensation in excess of his or her damages.” In practice, your UIM insurer pays the difference between your total damages and what the at-fault driver’s policy paid, up to your UIM limit. You can’t collect more than your actual losses, but you aren’t penalized for the fact that the other driver had some insurance.
An example: your damages total $100,000, the at-fault driver carries $50,000 in liability coverage, and you have $100,000 in UIM coverage. The other driver’s insurer pays $50,000. Your UIM insurer then owes up to $50,000 to cover what’s left. You collect $100,000, which matches your actual losses.
Stacking UM and UIM Limits
Stacking means combining UM or UIM limits from more than one vehicle on the same policy, or from more than one policy. Arkansas generally allows both forms of stacking unless the policy language unambiguously prohibits it. Courts look closely at whether an anti-stacking clause is clear enough that you had a real opportunity to understand what you were agreeing to.
If you insure three vehicles on one policy, each with $50,000 per-person UM limits, stacking could potentially give you access to $150,000 in UM coverage for a single accident. Whether that works depends entirely on your policy wording. The “limits of liability” section of your declarations page is where any anti-stacking clause would appear.
The 30-Day UIM Settlement Notice
If you reach a tentative settlement with the at-fault driver’s insurer and you plan to tap your UIM coverage for the rest, Arkansas law requires a specific notice to your own insurer before you finalize anything.
The notice goes to your UIM insurer by certified mail, return receipt requested, and it must include three things:
- Documentation of your losses, including copies of medical bills and records of other financial harm
- Written authorization, or a court order, allowing your UIM insurer to pull your medical and employment records
- A written statement from the at-fault driver’s insurer confirming the liability limits and the terms of the tentative settlement, with no amount included for punitive damages
Your UIM insurer then has 30 days to respond. Within that window, it can pay you an amount equal to the tentative settlement and step into your position to pursue the at-fault driver itself. If the insurer doesn’t pay within 30 days, it loses several rights at once: it can’t claim any share of your settlement or judgment against the at-fault driver, it can’t try to recover UIM benefits it later pays you, and it can’t refuse your UIM benefits on the ground that you went ahead and settled.
That deadline is where most of the leverage in a UIM claim sits. Once 30 days pass without payment, your insurer’s options narrow sharply. It’s also why sending the certified notice with every required item matters. If a required piece is missing, your insurer has an argument that the 30-day clock never started.
Hit-and-Run Accidents
When a driver hits you and flees, UM coverage is usually what pays, because an unidentified at-fault driver is treated as uninsured. Arkansas courts have recognized a physical contact requirement for hit-and-run UM claims, though. Your vehicle or body generally needs to have been touched by the fleeing vehicle or something from it. If a car swerves into your lane, forces you off the road, and drives off without ever making contact, the claim becomes much harder to pursue under most policy language.
This rule comes from policy provisions rather than a specific Arkansas statute. If the hit-and-run driver is later identified, you can pursue a standard UM claim against a known uninsured motorist, or file a direct liability claim if the driver turns out to have been insured after all.
What to Check on Your Own Policy
Three things on your current policy are worth a direct look. First, whether you ever signed a written rejection of UM or UIM coverage. A rejection you signed years ago is still working against you now. Second, whether your UM and UIM limits match your liability limits. Carrying only the state minimum on UM and UIM leaves you exposed if your injuries are serious; a single emergency room visit with imaging and follow-up can run past $25,000. Third, whether your policy has an anti-stacking clause, especially if you insure more than one vehicle. Any one of these can quietly cut what you’d collect after a crash with an uninsured or underinsured driver.