Uninsured motorist coverage in Arkansas is built into every auto liability policy automatically, and it pays for your injuries when the driver who hits you has no insurance, can’t be found, or whose insurer denies the claim. You get it unless you sign a written rejection. The minimum limits track the state’s liability floor of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, and insurers must also offer you underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage and uninsured motorist property damage coverage on similar terms.
What UM Bodily Injury Coverage Pays For
UM bodily injury coverage pays your medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering when you’re hurt by a driver who carries no liability insurance. It also applies when the at-fault driver’s insurer denies the claim or the policy has been canceled.
Because Arkansas requires insurers to build this coverage into every auto liability policy by default, you have it whether you thought about it or not, so long as you never signed a rejection. The state’s minimum liability limits are 25/50/25: $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 for all people in one accident, and $25,000 for property damage. Your UM bodily injury coverage must meet that same $25,000/$50,000 floor.
If you buy liability limits higher than the state minimum, your insurer has to offer you UM coverage at those higher limits too. You aren’t required to buy up, but the offer has to happen, and declining higher UM limits takes a separate written rejection on your application.
UM Property Damage and the $200 Deductible
Bodily injury and property damage are handled separately. Arkansas law requires insurers to offer UM property damage coverage to anyone who buys UM bodily injury protection. It pays to repair or replace your vehicle after a crash with an uninsured driver.
UM property damage comes with a built-in $200 deductible. That deductible disappears 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 alone isn’t enough if your collision coverage is with a different insurer.
Your insurer isn’t required to offer UM property damage limits higher than your property damage liability limits. So if you carry $25,000 in property damage liability, that’s the ceiling on UM property damage too.
Underinsured Motorist Coverage
UIM coverage picks up where the at-fault driver’s insurance runs out. If someone with a $25,000 policy causes $80,000 in injuries to you, their insurance pays $25,000 and your UIM coverage can help close the $55,000 gap. The other driver is technically insured, just not enough.
Arkansas insurers must offer UIM on every private passenger auto policy, and you can reject it in writing. Minimum UIM limits match the state’s minimum bodily injury requirements: $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident. One rule catches people off guard: you can’t carry UIM without also having UM. The two go together. If you’ve rejected UM, UIM is unavailable until you reinstate UM in writing.
How UIM Benefits Are Calculated
Arkansas uses a damages approach rather than a straight offset. Your UIM coverage is not reduced dollar-for-dollar by what the at-fault driver’s insurance pays. The statute says your 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 covered, up to your UIM policy limit.
An example makes this concrete. You suffer $100,000 in damages, 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 the rest. You collect $100,000 total, matching your actual losses.
Rejecting Coverage in Writing
You can reject UM bodily injury coverage entirely, but the rejection has to be in writing. Once you sign it, the rejection carries through every renewal, reinstatement, or replacement policy until you withdraw it in writing. Your insurer doesn’t have to remind you at future renewals that the coverage exists.
The same rule applies to rejecting higher UM limits, to UM property damage, and to UIM. Sign the rejection once and it sticks. This is where many Arkansas drivers unknowingly leave themselves exposed. Rejecting UM saves a modest amount on premiums but means you absorb the full cost of injuries caused by an uninsured driver.
Stacking Multiple Vehicles or Policies
Stacking lets you combine UM or UIM limits from multiple vehicles on the same policy, or from multiple policies. Arkansas generally permits both inter-policy stacking (combining limits across policies) and intra-policy stacking (combining limits across vehicles on one policy) unless the policy language unambiguously prohibits it. Courts look closely at whether an anti-stacking clause is clear enough that you had a genuine opportunity to understand what you were agreeing to.
If you insure three vehicles on one policy at $50,000 per-person UM limits, stacking could give you access to $150,000 for a single accident. Whether it applies depends entirely on your policy language. Check the “limits of liability” section of your declarations page and look for any clause restricting how limits combine across vehicles.
Hit-and-Run Accidents
When a driver hits you and flees, UM coverage is typically what pays the claim, because a driver who can’t be found is treated as uninsured. Arkansas courts have recognized a physical contact requirement for hit-and-run UM claims, though. Your vehicle or your 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 away without ever making contact, the claim becomes significantly harder to pursue under most policy language.
The physical contact rule comes from policy provisions rather than a specific Arkansas statute. If the fleeing driver is later identified, the situation changes: you can pursue a standard UM claim against a known uninsured motorist, or a liability claim directly if the driver turns out to have been insured.
Filing a UIM Claim: The 30-Day Notice Rule
When you’re hurt by an underinsured driver and reach a tentative settlement with that driver’s insurer, Arkansas law spells out a specific notification process before you can finalize the deal and tap your own UIM coverage.
You send written notice to your UIM insurer by certified mail, return receipt requested. The notice has to include three things:
- Copies of all medical bills and documentation of other financial losses
- Written authorization or a court order letting your UIM insurer obtain 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, the insurer can pay you an amount equal to the tentative settlement and step into your shoes to pursue the at-fault driver for reimbursement. If the insurer doesn’t pay within 30 days, it loses several rights: it can’t claim any share of your settlement or judgment against the at-fault driver, it can’t try to recoup UIM benefits it later pays you, and it can’t refuse to pay your UIM benefits just because you settled with the other driver.
That 30-day deadline is where most of the leverage in a UIM claim sits. Once it passes without payment, your insurer’s options narrow. It’s also why sending complete documentation by certified mail matters so much; a missing item could give your insurer grounds to argue the 30-day clock never started.
Checking Your Own Policy
Three things are worth looking at on your current declarations page. First, whether at some point you signed a written rejection of UM or UIM coverage and forgot; that rejection is still in force unless you withdrew it in writing. Second, whether your UM and UIM limits match your liability limits, because carrying $100,000 in liability with only $25,000 in UM leaves a wide gap if the other driver is uninsured. Third, whether the policy contains an anti-stacking clause that could limit recovery when you insure more than one vehicle.
A single emergency room visit with imaging and follow-up care can easily exceed the $25,000 minimum. Matching your UM and UIM limits to your liability limits usually costs relatively little and closes a gap that could otherwise reach your savings.