Most people hurt in a car crash in Queens believe they have three years to do something about it. They are right about the lawsuit and wrong about almost everything else, because the first deadline that matters has nothing to do with suing anybody.
It is thirty days, it runs against your own insurance company, and it starts the moment the crash happens.
What no-fault actually is, and what it pays
New York is a no-fault state for car accidents. That phrase gets used loosely, so here is what it means in practice: after a crash, your own insurer pays your medical bills and part of your lost wages regardless of who caused it. You do not have to prove anything about the other driver to collect it.
The coverage is called basic economic loss, and Insurance Law section 5102(a) sets it at up to $50,000 per person. Inside that figure sit three separate buckets:
- Medical treatment — hospital, surgical, dental, ambulance, x-ray, prescriptions, prosthetics, and psychiatric, physical and occupational therapy on referral.
- Lost earnings, capped at $2,000 per month for up to three years — and paid at 80 per cent, because section 5102(b) deducts twenty per cent before anything is reimbursed.
- Other necessary expenses, up to $25 a day for up to a year. This is the bucket that covers car service to physical therapy, or household help you had to pay for because you could not manage stairs.
Some policies carry an extra $25,000 of optional coverage for earnings and therapy once the $50,000 is gone. Most people do not know whether they bought it. It is worth finding out in week one rather than month six.
The four clocks that start at the scene
None of these appear in the paperwork an emergency room hands you, and none of them are the three-year deadline people have heard about.
Thirty days. Written notice of the claim has to reach the insurer “as soon as reasonably practicable, but in no event more than 30 days after the date of the accident.” That is the wording of the mandatory no-fault endorsement in the Department of Financial Services regulations, 11 NYCRR 65-1.1. The form is the NF-2. Miss the thirty days without a good explanation and the insurer can deny the entire no-fault claim.
This number is published incorrectly all over the internet as ninety days. Ninety was the rule before 2002. It is not the rule now.
Forty-five days. Written proof of a medical bill has to reach the insurer “no later than 45 days after the date services are rendered.” Not forty-five days after you get the bill. Forty-five days after the appointment.
Ninety days. Proof of lost earnings and other necessary expenses has to be in within ninety days of the loss being incurred.
Twenty-four hours. This one only applies if the driver who hit you left the scene and was never identified. In that situation the claim may run through the Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation, and Insurance Law section 5208 requires that the accident be “reported within twenty-four hours after the occurrence to a police, peace or judicial officer,” with an affidavit filed with the corporation within ninety days.
Twenty-four hours is short enough that people miss it while they are still in an emergency department.
What the numbers look like in a real case
Take a delivery driver living near Hillside Avenue who earns $3,200 a month and is out of work for three months after a collision.
His lost earnings claim is calculated at eighty per cent of $3,200, which is $2,560 a month — but the statutory cap is $2,000, so $2,000 is what the policy pays. Over three months that is $6,000.
His medical treatment across those three months comes to $31,000. Car service to physical therapy runs $22 a day for forty days, which sits under the $25 daily limit, so all of it is payable: $880.
Total drawn against the policy: $37,880. He has $12,120 of his $50,000 left, and he has not yet had the surgery his orthopaedist has raised.
Two things follow from that arithmetic, and neither is obvious from the outside. He is earning $3,200 and being reimbursed $2,000, so he is $1,200 a month short whatever happens. And the $50,000 is closer to running out than he thinks — which matters, because the moment it is exhausted his treatment has to be funded some other way.
Where this goes wrong
These are the ways no-fault claims actually fail. Almost none of them involve the injury itself being in doubt.
Nobody files the application because everybody assumes the hospital did
The hospital bills the insurer. That is not the same as you filing a claim, and hospital billing does not satisfy the thirty-day notice requirement. This is the single most common way a claim dies, and it dies quietly — the first anyone hears of it is a denial letter weeks later.
The forty-five day bill deadline is somebody else’s job and your problem
It is the medical provider who submits the bill, and providers miss the forty-five days routinely. The consequence lands on the patient: an unpaid bill, and a provider who now wants paying directly. Ask at every appointment whether the office has billed no-fault, and keep a note of when.
A gap in treatment
Stop going to physical therapy for six weeks because you feel better, or because the appointments are inconvenient, and the insurer will treat the gap as evidence you recovered. Getting benefits restarted after a gap is far harder than keeping them running.
The insurer’s medical examination
At some point the carrier will schedule an examination with a doctor it chooses. Missing it, or missing two, is grounds to cut benefits off entirely. These appointments are frequently scheduled at short notice and at inconvenient addresses. They still have to be attended.
Expecting no-fault to pay for the part that hurts
No-fault pays bills and wages. It does not pay a dollar for pain and suffering, and it never has. That part only becomes available through a claim against the driver who caused the crash, and only if the injury clears the statutory serious injury threshold — death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, a fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use, or significant limitation of use.
Being on foot or on a bike and not knowing whose policy pays
A pedestrian struck by a car in Queens is covered by the policy on the car that struck them. So is a cyclist. People walk away from claims they are entitled to because they do not own a vehicle and assume no-fault is something only drivers have.
The hit-and-run that was never reported in twenty-four hours
Where the driver is never identified, that twenty-four hour police report is a condition of the claim rather than a formality. A report made three days later, however understandable the delay, creates an argument the victim then has to win.
What changed in May 2026
One development this year is worth knowing about, because it has not reached most of what is written on this subject.
The state budget enacted in May 2026 amended the Insurance Law and the Civil Practice Law and Rules on motor vehicle accident liability. Two changes matter to anyone hurt on a Queens road.
The 90/180-day category has been removed from the serious injury definition. That category previously let someone qualify by showing they were substantially unable to carry out their usual activities for ninety of the first hundred and eighty days after the crash. The eight categories listed above are now the whole list.
And in car accident cases, a claimant whose share of the fault is greater than the other side’s is now barred from recovering for pain and suffering altogether. Under the old rule any percentage of fault still recovered something, reduced proportionally. That is still how it works for a fall, a construction injury or a dog bite. It is no longer how it works on the road.
The amendment applies to cases filed after it took effect, not to accidents that happened after it. A claim from a 2024 collision that has not yet been filed is governed by the new rules.
The first week
- Get treated the same day, even if you think you are fine. A gap between the crash and the first appointment is the first thing an insurer points at.
- Call your insurer and ask for the no-fault application. Ask for the NF-2 by name. Do this within days, not weeks.
- Get the police report number at the scene. If the police do not attend, file the report yourself — and within twenty-four hours if the other driver left.
- Photograph the vehicles, the road and your injuries before anything is moved.
- Keep every receipt, including car service to appointments. That is the $25-a-day bucket, and it goes unclaimed more often than not.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer.
Common questions
My employer pays me while I am out. Can I still claim lost earnings?
Usually the benefit is paid to whoever bore the loss. If your employer continued your salary, the reimbursement generally goes to the employer rather than to you. It is still worth claiming, because it preserves the record and it may affect your sick leave balance.
I was a passenger. Whose insurance do I claim on?
Generally the policy on the vehicle you were riding in, whoever caused the crash. Being a passenger does not put you at the back of any queue.
The thirty days has already passed. Is that the end of it?
Not necessarily. The regulation allows for written proof of a reasonable justification for the delay, and insurers do accept late notice where there is a real explanation — hospitalisation being the obvious one. It becomes an argument rather than an entitlement, which is why it is better not to need it.
Does using no-fault put my premium up?
It is a no-fault benefit, which is the point of the name. Claiming it is not an admission that you caused anything.
I do not own a car and I was hit while crossing the street. Do I have coverage?
Yes, through the policy on the vehicle that struck you. This is the single most commonly missed entitlement in the whole system.
Where to start
Whether the injury itself is serious enough to sue over is a separate question with its own rules, and we set out what New York counts as a serious injury after a Queens car accident in full.
If you were hurt on a Queens road in the last month, the useful thing to do this week is not to decide whether to bring a case. It is to make sure the thirty-day clock has been stopped.
This article provides general information about New York law and is not legal advice. No-fault entitlements and deadlines depend on the terms of the policy and the facts of the accident. Speak to an attorney or your insurer about your own circumstances.
Speak to a Queens injury attorney
If you have questions about a no-fault claim or a crash in Queens, Ribowsky Law offers a free consultation and works on a contingency basis — there is no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery. Call or visit the Queens office; directions are on the map below.
Ribowsky Law
109-12 Jamaica Avenue, Richmond Hill, NY 11418
Phone: (718) 659-5333
Ribowsky Law Queens Personal Injury & Accident Lawyer
109-12 Jamaica Ave, Richmond Hill, NY 11418
Phone: 718-659-5333