Limited Tort vs. Full Tort Insurance in Pennsylvania

Limited tort does not eliminate non-economic damages. It conditions them on a threshold: the injury must constitute a serious impairment of a body function. Pennsylvania courts assess that through the nature and extent of the impairment, the type of medical treatment required, the duration of the impairment, the extent of any residual limitation, and the prognosis for recovery. It is ordinarily a question for the jury.

In practice, insurers treat limited tort as an automatic denial. It is not. Documented herniations requiring injections or surgery, fractures with hardware, nerve injury with objective findings on EMG, traumatic brain injury with neuropsychological testing, and permanent scarring have all cleared the threshold in Pennsylvania courts. What loses is thin documentation — gaps in treatment, no objective imaging, and no physician statement tying limitation to the crash.

Section 1705(d) lists circumstances where the limited tort restriction simply does not apply. These are not arguments about severity — they are categorical. When one fits, you recover as if you had elected full tort.

The tort election on a Pennsylvania policy binds the named insured, that person's spouse, and resident relatives of the household who do not have their own auto coverage. A college student on a parent's policy in State College is bound by the parent's limited tort election. An adult child who lives at home and carries their own full tort policy is bound by their own election, not the parent's.

That household reach is why I tell people this is a family decision, not a personal one. Choosing limited tort to save a hundred and fifty dollars a year applies that restriction to your spouse and your teenage driver as well.

Limited tort saves most Pennsylvania households a modest amount on the liability portion of the premium. I have never had a client tell me the savings were worth it after a serious crash. The category of damages limited tort restricts — pain, suffering, disfigurement, and loss of life's pleasures — is frequently the largest component of an injury recovery, and it is the only category that compensates the human cost rather than the receipts.

If you take one practical step after reading this page, pull your declarations page and look for the tort election line. Changing from limited to full tort takes one phone call to your agent and takes effect prospectively. It will not help with a crash that already happened, but it protects your household going forward.

Do not accept an adjuster's conclusion that you have no claim. My first steps are to obtain the declarations page and confirm the actual election in writing, check the exceptions in 75 Pa. C.S. § 1705(d)(1)(i) and § 1705(d)(3) against the facts, verify the at-fault vehicle's state of registration and insurance status, and pull the criminal docket to see whether DUI charges were filed.

Then we build the threshold record: consistent treatment, objective imaging, specialist opinions on permanency, and functional documentation of what you can no longer do at work and at home. Limited tort cases are won on medical documentation. That work starts in the first weeks, not the month before the two-year deadline in 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524.