Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Claims in New Hampshire
The driver who hit you has no insurance, or not enough. Your own policy may be the one that pays.
New Hampshire does not require drivers to carry liability insurance. When the driver who hit you has none, or carries the state minimum against injuries worth many times that, the question stops being what the other driver's policy will pay and becomes what your own policy provides. Knowing what kind of insurance is in play is an important part of personal injury practice in New Hampshire.
That coverage is called uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. In New Hampshire it is almost certainly already in your policy, at limits equal to the liability limits you bought. Getting it paid is a claim against your insurance company, and that company will handle it the way it handles any other claim it would rather not pay.
What Is Uninsured Motorist Coverage?
Every auto policy has two halves. Liability coverage pays other people when you are at fault. Uninsured motorist coverage pays you when someone else is at fault and cannot. It sits in your own policy, was bought with your own premium, and responds when the at-fault driver has no insurance at all.
Underinsured motorist coverage is the same coverage doing a different job. The at-fault driver has insurance, but the injuries are worth more than that driver's limits. Your own coverage fills the gap, up to your own limits.
New Hampshire treats the two as one coverage. RSA 264:15, I requires it in every motor vehicle liability policy issued on a vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state, and RSA 259:117 defines "uninsured motor vehicle" to include a vehicle whose liability limits are lower than your uninsured motorist limits. The statute uses one term for both situations, and so does the rest of this page unless the difference matters.
Uninsured vs. Underinsured at a Glance
How Much Uninsured Motorist Coverage Do You Have?
As much as your liability coverage. The second sentence of RSA 264:15, I does the work: "When an insured elects to purchase liability insurance in an amount greater than the minimum coverage required by RSA 259:61, the insured's uninsured motorist coverage shall automatically be equal in amounts and limits to the liability coverage elected."
A driver who bought $250,000 in liability limits because a lender or an agent suggested it has $250,000 in uninsured motorist coverage as well. No separate purchase was made. No box was checked. The coverage rose with the liability limits by operation of the statute.
The floor is the RSA 259:61 minimum: $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 for one accident injuring more than one person, and $25,000 in property damage. Nobody with a New Hampshire policy has less uninsured motorist coverage than that.
Look at your declarations page. The line reading "Uninsured Motorist" or "UM/UIM" should show the same figures as the line reading "Bodily Injury Liability." If it shows less, or shows nothing, that is worth a phone call, because the statute does not give an ordinary auto policy a way to leave the coverage out
Can the coverage be rejected?
Not on the policy covering your car. RSA 264:15, I does contain a written rejection right, and it is real, but by its own terms it belongs to umbrella and excess policies. The sentences that put the coverage in the underlying auto policy carry no rejection right at all, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court confirmed the distinction in Royce v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 2026 N.H. 28 (July 24, 2026). The history of that rejection right, and what it means for umbrella policyholders, is set out in the full article: Injured by an Uninsured Driver in NH? Your Auto Policy May Pay.
When Uninsured Motorist Coverage Applies
The coverage reaches more situations than most policyholders expect, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court has struck policy language that tried to narrow it.
The At-Fault Driver Has No Insurance
The simplest case. The other driver was uninsured, and your own policy pays what that driver's policy would have paid, up to your uninsured motorist limits. The claim runs against your own insurer, which will investigate fault and damages exactly as the other driver's insurer would have, because it is now the one writing the check.
The At-Fault Driver Has Insurance, but Not Enough
RSA 259:117 gives two routes to "underinsured." A vehicle qualifies if, at the time of the accident, its liability limits are lower than your uninsured motorist limits, or if the available liability insurance "has been reduced by payments to others injured in the subject accident to an amount less than the limits of the uninsured motorist coverage applicable to the insured."
The second route is the one people miss. A driver carrying $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident is adequately insured for one moderate injury and badly underinsured for a five-car crash. If four other claimants are paid $250,000 between them, $50,000 of that driver's policy is left for everyone else. A claim worth $400,000 is then looking at $50,000 from the driver who caused it. The insurance available to you is not fixed by what the other driver's declarations page says. It shrinks as that policy pays other people, and those payments happen while your claim is still open.
Hit-and-Run and Phantom Vehicles
Nobody has to have hit you. RSA 264:15, I extends the coverage to "hit-and-run vehicles," and the Supreme Court held in Soule v. Stuyvesant Insurance Co., 116 N.H. 595, 597 (1976), that a policy requirement of physical contact "is an impermissible restriction of coverage." Merchants Mutual Insurance Group v. Orthopedic Professional Ass'n, 124 N.H. 648, 653-54 (1984), added that the coverage runs to the full policy limits, not merely the statutory minimum. A driver who forced you off the road and kept going is covered. Proof is still proof, and the claim is decided on the evidence, but New Hampshire has no rule requiring an independent witness.
A Car Your Own Family Owns
Most policies exclude from "uninsured motor vehicle" any vehicle owned by the insured or a family member. New Hampshire does not read that exclusion literally in every case. In Rivera v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 163 N.H. 603 (2012), a driver in her parents' insured car was injured when a passenger grabbed the wheel; the passenger's insurer denied coverage, and the parents' policy cut off liability coverage for him too. The Court held the exclusion could not be applied to her on those facts, because the driver and the vehicle "were effectively uninsured," 163 N.H. at 612. The ruling is as-applied, not a general rule against household exclusions. Whether it reaches your facts is a question for a lawyer who has read the opinion.
Read the full analysis, including the medical payments set-off rule and the license-suspension exclusion: Injured by an Uninsured Driver in NH? Your Auto Policy May Pay.
How Insurance Companies Use Uninsured Motorist Claims Against You
The insurer that owes this coverage is your own. That does not make it your advocate. Once a claim is opened under this coverage, your insurer stands in the at-fault driver's shoes and defends the claim the way that driver's insurer would have. Four things in particular cost claimants coverage they had already paid for.
The Release With the Warning Printed On It
The at-fault driver's insurer will often tender its policy limits early, with a release attached, at a point when the full extent of your injuries is not yet known. The legislature put a warning on that document. RSA 264:15, V requires every document tendered to settle a bodily injury claim that may be subject to this coverage to prominently contain, read and signed by the releasing party: "IF YOU SIGN THIS RELEASE YOU MAY FORFEIT YOUR RIGHT TO UNINSURED MOTORIST INSURANCE BENEFITS FROM YOUR OWN AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE POLICY. CONSULT WITH YOUR INSURANCE AGENT, YOUR AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, OR YOUR ATTORNEY BEFORE SIGNING." The statute puts that warning there because signing can extinguish the larger claim against your own carrier. Whether the first offer is worth taking at all is a separate question, taken up here: Should I Accept the Insurance Company's First Offer?
Settling Without Your Insurer's Consent
Auto policies condition this coverage on the insurer's consent to any settlement with the at-fault driver. The requirement is old in New Hampshire, and it has teeth. In Bartlett v. Commerce Insurance Co., 167 N.H. 521, 528-29 (2015), the insured told the carrier about the settlement and heard nothing back. The Court held that silence is not waiver: the insured carries the burden of proving the carrier waived the condition, and the carrier does not have to show it was prejudiced. Notice given and unanswered is not consent obtained. The consent must be in hand before the release is signed.
"Exhaustion" of the Other Driver's Limits
Underinsured motorist coverage sits above the other driver's insurance, not alongside it. Amica Mutual Insurance Co. v. Morrison, 130 N.H. 250, 256 (1987), describes the policy condition that requires the insured "to exhaust an underinsured tortfeasor's liability coverage before being entitled to payment under the underinsured motorist coverage." What counts as exhaustion when you settle for less than the other driver's full limits has not been decided in New Hampshire. An adjuster offering $70,000 on a $100,000 policy is offering to close that claim for less than limits, and whether limits closed out that way have been exhausted for your own coverage is an open question. That is a reason not to sign until the question has been thought through for your policy.
Notice and Cooperation Conditions
Every policy requires the insured to give notice of a loss and to cooperate with the insurer. A claimant who says nothing to their own carrier for a long time, and whose silence leaves that carrier at a real disadvantage in investigating the crash, may face an argument about those conditions whether or not any deadline has run. The practical answer is to put your own carrier on notice of the accident early, whether or not a claim under this coverage is ever made. There is no cost to having the notice on file and there can be a real cost to its absence.
The Deadline for an Uninsured Motorist Claim in New Hampshire
There is no separate limitations statute for these claims. RSA 508:4 governs, and the period is three years. What differs is when it starts.
A claim against the driver who hit you is a tort claim, and the three years run from the injury. A claim against your own insurer for uninsured or underinsured motorist benefits is a claim on the insurance contract, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court held in Metropolitan Property & Liability Insurance Co. v. Walker, 136 N.H. 594, 598 (1993), that the limitations period "commenced to run on the date when the insurer rejected the insured's claim for underinsured motorist benefits." The clock starts at the denial, not at the crash.
Two cautions. Walker decides when the clock starts; it does not decide what the policy's own notice and cooperation conditions require, and the carrier in that case had raised exactly that second ground. And a claim against your own carrier that is timely does not keep the claim against the at-fault driver alive. That one still runs from the date of the crash. The general rule, and the exceptions for minors, wrongful death, and claims against a town, are on the statute of limitations page.
How Apis Law Handles Uninsured Motorist Claims
Practicing in New Hampshire since 2003, I have seen one policy issued here with no uninsured motorist provision in it. Once. The coverage is nearly always there. The work is in getting it paid without giving any of it away on the path to the at-fault driver's limits.
Reading the Policy, Not the Summary
The declarations page states the limits. The policy states the conditions: consent to settle, notice, cooperation, exhaustion, the owned-vehicle exclusion, any set-off. I read the policy before the first letter goes to either carrier, because the conditions decide the order in which the two claims have to move.
Establishing the At-Fault Driver's Coverage in Writing
Whether this is an uninsured claim or an underinsured claim depends on a number: the other driver's liability limits, and how much of them remain after other claimants are paid. That figure comes from the at-fault driver's insurer, in writing, before any offer is evaluated. An underinsured claim cannot be sized without it.
Sequencing the Two Claims
The claim against the at-fault driver and the claim against your own carrier are separate claims with separate deadlines, and a step in one can forfeit the other. The release and the consent letter move together. Some carriers will not open an uninsured motorist file until there is a firm offer from the at-fault driver's insurer, so the sequence often runs through a request to your own carrier for permission to settle. That request is where the second claim begins.
Handling Comparative Fault Inside Your Own Claim
Your own insurer is entitled to argue you were partly at fault, and it will, because the recovery is reduced by your percentage under RSA 507:7-d exactly as it would be against the other driver. The comparative fault page explains the 51% bar and how the reduction is calculated. The same evidence that defeats a fault argument from the other driver's insurer is needed against your own.
When the Insurer Says No
A coverage dispute with your own insurer is resolved by a petition for declaratory judgment under RSA 491:22, and the statute is unusually favorable to the policyholder. RSA 491:22-a puts the burden of proof "upon the insurer whether he institutes the petition or whether the claimant asserting the coverage institutes the petition." RSA 491:22-b provides that if the insured prevails, "he shall receive court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees from the insurer," and the Supreme Court applied that fee shift in an uninsured motorist case in Merchants Mutual, 124 N.H. at 660. RSA 491:22-a speaks of "a liability insurance policy," and whether it reaches a first-party uninsured motorist claim has not been decided. Even so, a denial is a document to be examined, not accepted.
Uninsured motorist coverage is one layer of a larger recovery. What comes out of a New Hampshire settlement before you are paid, including liens and set-offs, is covered here: What Comes Out of a New Hampshire Injury Settlement Before You Get Paid.
Your Own Insurer Is Not Your Advocate
You paid for this coverage with every premium, and in New Hampshire you paid for it at the same limits you bought to protect other people. The company that took those premiums will, once a claim is opened, evaluate your injuries, argue your share of fault, and scrutinize every condition in the policy for a reason not to pay. That is not bad faith. It is what the coverage becomes the moment it is claimed.
An uninsured motorist claim is handled well when the two claims are kept in the right order, the release is signed only with consent in hand, the deadlines are counted from the right dates, and the policy has been read before either carrier is told anything. That is the work Apis Law does on these claims, for people injured in Goffstown, Manchester, Bedford, and throughout southern New Hampshire.
Free Consultation
If you were hit by an uninsured or underinsured driver, or by a driver who fled, contact Apis Law before signing anything from any insurer. The consultation is free and there is no obligation. I will read your declarations page, explain what your policy owes you, and set out the order in which the claims should move.
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If you’ve been injured in an accident and the insurance company is trying to blame you, contact us today. Apis Law offers a free, no-obligation consultation where we’ll review the facts of your case, explain how comparative fault may affect your claim, and outline a strategy for maximizing your recovery. Attorney Diaz works on a contingency-fee basis, which means you pay nothing unless we win your case.
About the Author
Keith F. Diaz, Esq. | New Hampshire Bar No. 15831
Attorney Keith F. Diaz has practiced law in New Hampshire since 2003. He began his career as a criminal prosecutor in Rockingham County before transitioning to civil litigation in 2005. Today he represents individuals in personal injury and employment law matters throughout Southern New Hampshire. He is admitted to practice before the New Hampshire Supreme Court, the New Hampshire Superior and Circuit Courts, and the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. He founded Apis Law in 2022.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Uninsured Motorist Claims
What is uninsured motorist coverage in New Hampshire?
It is the half of your own auto policy that pays you when the driver who caused the crash cannot. RSA 264:15, I requires it in every motor vehicle liability policy issued on a vehicle registered or principally garaged in New Hampshire. The claim is made against your own insurer, which then stands in the at-fault driver's shoes.
What is the difference between uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage?
Uninsured motorist coverage applies when the at-fault driver has no liability insurance, the insurer is insolvent, or the driver fled. Underinsured motorist coverage applies when the at-fault driver has insurance but the limits are lower than your own uninsured motorist limits, or have been paid down to other people hurt in the same crash. RSA 259:117 defines both as an uninsured motor vehicle.
Does New Hampshire require uninsured motorist coverage?
Yes, in every ordinary auto policy. New Hampshire does not require liability insurance at all, but once a policy is issued on a vehicle registered or principally garaged here, RSA 264:15, I requires it to include uninsured motorist coverage. The written rejection right applies to umbrella and excess policies, not to the policy on your car.
How much uninsured motorist coverage do I have?
The same amount as your liability coverage. Under RSA 264:15, I, when an insured buys liability limits above the state minimum, the uninsured motorist coverage is automatically equal in amounts and limits to the liability coverage elected. The RSA 259:61 minimum is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident.
Does uninsured motorist coverage apply to a hit-and-run in New Hampshire?
Yes, and the other vehicle does not have to have touched yours. RSA 264:15, I names hit-and-run vehicles. Soule v. Stuyvesant Insurance Co., 116 N.H. 595, 597 (1976), held a physical contact requirement to be an impermissible restriction on coverage, and Merchants Mutual, 124 N.H. 648, 653-54 (1984), held the coverage runs to the full policy limits.
How long do I have to file an uninsured motorist claim in New Hampshire?
Three years under RSA 508:4, but the clock starts when your insurer denies the claim rather than on the date of the crash. Metropolitan Property & Liability Insurance Co. v. Walker, 136 N.H. 594, 598 (1993). The claim against the at-fault driver runs three years from the injury.
What happens if my insurance company denies my uninsured motorist claim?
The dispute goes to the Superior Court on a petition for declaratory judgment under RSA 491:22. RSA 491:22-a places the burden of proof on the insurer, and RSA 491:22-b awards court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to an insured who prevails, as applied in Merchants Mutual, 124 N.H. at 660.
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