What Is PIP Insurance?

Personal injury protection pays without a fault decision

Personal injury protection (PIP) is an auto coverage that pays medical bills and lost income for you and your passengers after a crash, regardless of who caused it. PIP pays from the first dollar, with no deductible and no wait for anyone to decide fault.

Texas Insurance Code §1952.152 requires every auto insurer writing in Texas to offer personal injury protection, and the coverage stays on your policy unless you reject it in writing. Saying no on the phone does not count.

PIP is neither health insurance nor liability coverage. PIP is a small, fast pool of money attached to your own auto policy, paid to you rather than to the driver you hit or the driver who hit you, and paid whether the crash was anyone’s fault at all.

How personal injury protection pays

Personal injury protection pays the people in your car, and it pays before any fault decision is reached.

Your PIP limit is written per person and applies to each of these:

• Reasonable medical and hospital expenses arising from the crash
• A share of lost income, set by the policy form, for the time you could not work
• Replacement services you can no longer perform, such as childcare or household help
• Funeral expenses, within the limit, in a fatal crash

Coverage follows people rather than the car. A Texas personal injury protection endorsement covers the insured as a pedestrian, as a passenger in another vehicle and in a rental, and extends to relatives in the household on the terms printed in the form.

Personal injury protection pays alongside health insurance rather than instead of it, and the policy form says whether it pays first.

How a personal injury protection claim gets paid

A personal injury protection claim opens on your own policy, and the paperwork is short by design. You report the crash, send the medical bills and the proof of lost income to your own insurer, and the limit draws down until it is spent.

Three mechanics decide how far that limit goes:

• The limit is written per person, so a full car of injured passengers draws separate limits rather than sharing one
• Bills are paid as they arrive, which is why an emergency room bill usually consumes the limit before a later specialist bill does
• Texas Insurance Code §1952.152 keeps the coverage on the policy unless an insured named in the policy rejected it in writing, so the rejection file is the first thing an adjuster checks

The Texas version

Texas is a fault state with one no-fault coverage sitting inside it. Personal injury protection pays your medical bills without waiting for a liability decision, which matters because a Texas claim against the other driver can take months and pays nothing in the meantime.

Texas Insurance Code §1952.152 makes the offer mandatory and the refusal written, and the refusal can come from any insured named in the policy. Texas Insurance Code §1952.101 does the same thing for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, so a Texas policy carries both unless two separate written rejections sit in the file.

Medical payments coverage is a different Texas product with a similar job. Medical payments pays medical bills only, while personal injury protection adds lost income and replacement services on top.

Aulona Insurance Group places the coverage this question is about: Minimum Auto Insurance in Texas.

What PIP pays and what liability pays

Personal injury protection and the at-fault driver’s liability coverage answer overlapping bills on very different timelines. The table separates them.

After a crash	Personal injury protection (PIP)	The at-fault driver’s liability
Your medical bills	Pays, whoever caused it	Pays only if the other driver is at fault
Your passengers’ bills	Pays	Only if the other driver is at fault
Your lost income	Pays a share set by the policy	Pays if proven, and if fault is established
Childcare and household help	Pays	Rarely
Your vehicle repair	No	Property damage liability, if at fault
The other driver’s injuries	No	Pays
Timing	Weeks, no fault decision needed	After liability is settled
Your deductible	None applies	Not applicable

Rejecting personal injury protection is a coverage decision with a cost. The bills it would have paid move to a liability claim that settles on the at-fault insurer’s own timetable.

What to have ready before you ask an agent

Find your rejection form, or find out that you never signed one. Texas insurers keep the written rejection on file, and whether it exists decides whether you already own this coverage.

Bring these to the call:

• Your current declarations page, showing whether PIP or medical payments appears and at what limit
• Any signed rejection of personal injury protection or uninsured motorist coverage
• The names and dates of birth of every relative living in your household
• Your health insurance details, including deductible and network, since the two coverages interact
• Whether anyone in the household drives for a delivery or rideshare platform

Mention household members who do not drive. Personal injury protection covers them as passengers and as pedestrians, and Aulona Insurance Group sizes the limit around the whole household rather than around the licensed drivers in it.