Prop 213 Uninsured? You lose pain and suffering.
If your own car was uninsured when someone hit you, California pays your bills and your lost wages and takes away everything else. The statute has one exception, and the rule does not reach passengers, pedestrians, or economic damages.
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If your own vehicle was uninsured when another driver hit you, you can still recover your medical bills, your lost earnings, and the damage to your car, but you cannot recover pain and suffering. That rule is Proposition 213, passed by California voters in 1996 and written into Civil Code section 3333.4, and it usually removes the larger half of a claim. There is one exception in the statute, and it matters: if the driver who hit you was convicted of driving under the influence in that crash, the bar does not apply to you.
The opposite problem, a claim against your own carrier, meaning your own insurance company, when the other driver was the uninsured one, is covered in our guide to uninsured and underinsured motorist claims.
What Prop 213 takes from you
The statute opens with the operative sentence: except as provided in subdivision (c), in any action to recover damages arising out of the operation or use of a motor vehicle, a person shall not recover non-economic losses to compensate for pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, and other nonpecuniary damages if any of three things is true. Read the whole section on the state's own site. It is shorter than most people expect.
| Subdivision | Who it covers | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| (a)(1) | An injured person who was driving in violation of Vehicle Code 23152 or 23153 and was convicted of that offense | No non-economic losses |
| (a)(2) | An injured person who owned a vehicle involved in the accident that was not insured as the financial responsibility laws require | No non-economic losses |
| (a)(3) | An injured person who was operating a vehicle involved in the accident and cannot establish financial responsibility | No non-economic losses |
| (b) | An insurer, under a liability or uninsured motorist policy | Cannot indemnify, meaning pay for, directly or indirectly, the non-economic losses of a person described in (a) |
| (c) | A person described in (a)(2) who was hurt by a motorist convicted of violating 23152 or 23153 in that accident | The bar does not apply |
Non-economic losses are the part of a claim with no invoice attached: pain, the loss of things you used to do, anxiety, scarring. Economic losses are the ones with receipts: medical charges, lost earnings, future care, property damage. Proposition 213 draws its line there. It takes away the non-economic losses and leaves the economic losses untouched.
What you still recover
Everything with a number on it. Emergency room and ambulance charges, imaging, surgery, physical therapy, the treatment you have not had yet, the wages you lost while you could not work, the earning capacity you lost if the injury is permanent, and the repair or the value of the car. A claim with a $40,000 medical record and no non-economic damages is still a $40,000 problem for the driver who caused it, and it is still worth presenting properly.
What changes is the arithmetic and the strategy. Because the pain and suffering line is gone, the case is decided by the strength of the billing and the wage record rather than by how the injury reads. That makes complete records, an accurate wage loss statement from your employer, and an unbroken treatment history worth more here than in any other kind of claim. Our post on what a car accident case is actually worth walks through how each damage item is proved.
What counts as insured
Subdivisions (a)(2) and (a)(3) both point at the financial responsibility laws rather than at a policy. Vehicle Code section 16020 requires every driver and every owner to be able to establish financial responsibility and to carry evidence of it in the vehicle. Section 16021 then lists the ways it can be established, and a policy is only the first of them.
- A policy or bond that meets the requirements of the division, which for policies is the $30,000, $60,000, and $15,000 floor set by Vehicle Code section 16056.
- Status as a self-insurer under the division.
- A cash deposit with the Department of Motor Vehicles in the amount specified in section 16056, under section 16054.2.
- A policy from a charitable risk pool operating under Corporations Code section 5005.1, where the registered owner is a qualifying nonprofit.
- The vehicle being owned by the United States, this state, or a municipality or subdivision of it.
That list decides real cases. A driver borrowing an insured car with permission is normally covered by that car's policy, which is how an operator with no policy of their own establishes financial responsibility. A policy cancelled for non-payment three days before the crash is not coverage, and a policy on a different vehicle you own does not insure the one that was in the accident. The date on the declarations page is the fact that matters, so pull it before anyone characterizes your coverage for you. Our post on the 2025 minimum limits explains what those numbers buy.
When a drunk driver hit you
The exception is narrow and it is written for one situation. If you are a person described in paragraph (2) of subdivision (a), meaning the uninsured owner, and you were injured by a motorist who at the time of the accident was operating in violation of Vehicle Code section 23152 or 23153 and was convicted of that offense, you are not barred from recovering non-economic losses. The voters kept the penalty for driving uninsured and refused to hand it to a drunk driver as a defense.
Three details decide whether it helps you. The statute requires a conviction, so an arrest, a filed charge, or a pending case is not enough, and a plea to some other offense is not the offense the statute names. The conviction usually arrives on the criminal court's schedule rather than yours, while your own two year deadline keeps running. And the exception is written for the person described in paragraph (2). If the criminal case is still open when your civil case has to be filed, that is a timing problem to solve early, not a reason to wait.
Who the rule does not reach
- Passengers. The bar attaches to owning or operating a vehicle involved in the accident. A passenger in an uninsured car is neither.
- Pedestrians and cyclists. Hit while walking or riding a bicycle, you are not operating a motor vehicle, and an uninsured car sitting in your driveway is not a vehicle involved in the accident.
- Drivers of an insured vehicle they do not own. If the car you were driving was insured and that policy covers you, financial responsibility is established.
- Economic damages of every kind. Medical bills, wage loss, future care, and property damage are outside the statute entirely.
- Claims that are not motor vehicle claims. The section applies to an action for damages arising out of the operation or use of a motor vehicle, which is why a dog bite or a fall on someone's property is unaffected by your auto coverage.
- Workers hurt on the clock. A crash while you were working brings a separate set of benefits that Proposition 213 does not govern, covered in our post on workers' compensation and the third party claim.
What to do if you were uninsured
- 1Find every policy that might cover you
Look for a policy in a resident relative's name that lists you or the vehicle, a policy on another household car, and coverage through an employer if you were driving for work. Coverage you did not know about is the fastest way out of this rule.
- 2Get the declarations page for the date of the crash
Not today's page. Ask your carrier or your former carrier in writing for the coverage status on the day of the collision, including any lapse and reinstatement dates.
- 3Track the criminal case against the other driver
If there was any sign of impairment, the outcome of that prosecution decides whether subdivision (c) applies. Court records are public, and a conviction is what the statute requires.
- 4Treat, and keep every bill
The economic side of the claim is now the whole claim. Bills, records, and a wage loss statement from your employer are what it is built from.
- 5Buy coverage now
It does nothing for this crash. It is the difference in the next one, and California's floor is not expensive relative to what it protects.
What Prop 213 costs an uninsured driver
It costs the half of the claim that has no receipts. The bills and the wages get paid; the pain does not, unless the driver who hit you is convicted of driving under the influence in that crash. That is a hard rule, which is why the two things worth doing are finding coverage that already existed and building the economic side of the claim as tightly as it can be built.
If you are not sure whether a policy was in force that day, that is the first question to answer, and it is answerable in an afternoon. Tell us the date of the crash and who owned the car, and we will tell you where you stand. Our Los Angeles car accident lawyer page explains how the rest of the claim is built, riders can read the same rule applied to bikes on our motorcycle accident page, and there is no fee unless we recover.
