How to File a New York No-Fault Application (NF-2)

To file a New York No-Fault application (NF-2), send a completed form to the insurance company covering the vehicle you were in — or, if you were a pedestrian or cyclist, the vehicle that hit you — within 30 days of the accident. The form starts your claim for medical bills, lost wages, and related costs up to $50,000 per person, regardless of who caused the crash.¹

Where to Get the NF-2 and Who to File It With

The insurer covering the vehicle involved will usually mail you an NF-2 after you report the accident. You can also download the current version directly from the New York Department of Financial Services website.² The form’s full title is “Application for Motor Vehicle No-Fault Benefits.”

File it with the insurer on the policy covering the vehicle you were occupying. Drivers, passengers, and pedestrians are all eligible. If you were on foot or on a bike when a car hit you, the policy on the car that struck you is the one you claim against.³

When more than one policy might apply, the insurers can agree between themselves who pays first; if they can’t, the first insurer to receive notice has to start paying while the fight continues.⁴ For you, that means file quickly with the most obvious insurer and let the companies sort allocation out later.

The 30-Day Deadline

Written notice of your claim must reach the insurer within 30 days of the accident. This is the single most important rule in the no-fault process. A completed NF-2 counts as written notice, and so does the insurer receiving a copy of the MV-104 police crash report showing injuries.⁵ A phone call to the insurer is not written notice. If you only called, your completed NF-2 still needs to arrive within the 30 days.

Miss the deadline and you can lose the entire claim. A late filing is only excused when you provide a written explanation showing a clear and reasonable justification for the delay.⁶ In practice, insurers deny late claims as a matter of course, and the excuses they accept are narrow — hospitalization that made filing impossible, not simply being unaware of the rule.

What to Fill In

Start with the accident itself: exact date, time, and location. In the description of what happened, stick to physical facts — which vehicles were involved, direction of travel, how the collision occurred. Do not speculate about fault or add legal conclusions. The narrative is there to help the insurer understand circumstances, not to assign blame.

List every injury you sustained, along with the name and address of every doctor, hospital, and other provider you have seen since the accident. The insurer uses this list to verify your treatment and to coordinate direct billing with your providers, so leaving names out slows payment to those providers.²

For lost earnings, the form asks for your employer’s name and address, your job title, and your gross weekly earnings at the time of the accident. List every employer you had in the year before the crash if there was more than one. Any mismatch between what you report and what your employer later confirms will stall the wage benefit.²

Finally, you’ll need the insurance policy number for the vehicle involved and the police report number. The report number appears on the MV-104 crash report or on documentation from the responding precinct.⁷

One point worth knowing before you fill in the wage section: if your employer continues to pay you through disability, paid leave, or a contractual benefit, you generally cannot also collect no-fault lost-earnings benefits for the same period, unless those employer payments reduce future benefits from a later illness or injury.¹

The form carries a fraud warning. Wrongfully obtaining more than $3,000 through a fraudulent insurance claim is a class D felony in New York, with a potential prison sentence of up to seven years.⁸ Inflated injuries, fabricated wages, or a slanted account of the crash can convert a legitimate claim into a criminal case.

How to Submit It and Prove Delivery

Build a paper trail. Certified mail with return receipt through USPS gives you a signed record of delivery. If the insurer offers an electronic upload portal, save the confirmation screen and any receipt number it issues. These records are what you’ll rely on if the insurer later claims it never received the application.

What Happens After You File

Once your completed NF-2 arrives, the insurer has 10 business days to send out any verification forms it needs before paying the initial claim.⁹ The most common are the NF-6 wage verification form, which goes to your employer, and (if you’re self-employed) the NF-7 for historical income.

Your employer completes the NF-6, but it’s on you to make sure it actually comes back. The completed NF-6 must be submitted to the insurer within 90 days after lost wages first began.¹⁰ If you don’t hear back from your HR department within a couple of weeks, follow up. A missing NF-6 is one of the most common reasons lost-earnings benefits stall.

After the insurer receives completed verification, it has 15 business days to ask for any further information.⁹ Once all verification is in, the insurer must pay or deny the claim within 30 calendar days. Payments made later than that are overdue and accrue interest at 2% per month.⁴

Expect the insurer to schedule you for a medical examination with a doctor it selects. The no-fault endorsement lets insurers require these examinations “when, and as often as, the Company may reasonably require.”¹¹ Attend them. Courts have held that failing to attend means no coverage is available for the medical claims that follow.¹² Dispute the findings afterward if you need to, but don’t skip the appointment.

If the Insurer Denies Your Claim

A denial comes on a form called the NF-10, which states the reason and serves as the starting point for a challenge. You can file for arbitration through the American Arbitration Association’s New York Insurance ADR Center, online or by mail. The filing fee is $40.¹³

If you have the NF-10, complete the back of it, list every disputed bill with the provider name, amount, and date you sent it to the insurer, and attach copies. If no NF-10 ever arrived — for example, if the insurer simply ignored the 30-day pay-or-deny clock — use AAA Form AR1 instead.¹³ Submit everything with your initial request, because new evidence usually can’t be added later aside from bills for ongoing treatment. Send a copy of the full package to the insurer as well.

For overdue payments, you’re entitled to the 2% monthly interest plus reasonable attorney fees spent securing payment.⁴

What the NF-2 Does Not Cover

No-fault benefits reimburse economic losses only — medical bills, lost wages up to $2,000 per month for three years, and incidental expenses up to $25 per day for a year, all sharing a single $50,000 cap.¹ They do not pay for pain and suffering.

You can sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering only if your injuries meet the Insurance Law’s “serious injury” threshold: a fracture, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body part or organ, or a medically determined injury that keeps you from substantially all of your usual daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash.¹ Even then, the lawsuit opens the door only to non-economic damages. The economic losses stay with no-fault.¹⁴

1
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5102 – Definitions
2
New York Department of Financial Services. Application for Motor Vehicle No-Fault Benefits NF-2
3
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5103 – Entitlement to First Party Benefits
4
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5106 – Fair Claims Settlement
5
New York Department of Financial Services. Regulation 68 – 11 NYCRR 65 Original Promulgation
6
New York Department of Financial Services. OGC Opinion No. 08-06-01 – NF-2 Submission Timeframe
7
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Report of Motor Vehicle Crash MV-104
8
New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 176.20 – Insurance Fraud in the Third Degree
9
Cornell Law Institute. 11 NYCRR 65-3.5 – Claim Procedure
10
New York Department of Financial Services. Employer’s Wage Verification Report NF-6
11
Cornell Law Institute. 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 – Requirements for Minimum Benefit Insurance Policies for Personal Injuries
12
New York State Insurance Department. Failure to Attend a No-Fault IME
13
New York Department of Financial Services. File for No-Fault Arbitration
14
New York State Senate. New York Insurance Law 5104 – Causes of Action for Personal Injury