California Proposition 213 and Uninsured Drivers

What You Need to Know

If you drive in California without insurance and get hurt in a crash that wasn’t your fault, there’s a law most people don’t know about that can take the biggest part of your recovery away from you. It’s called Proposition 213. It passed in 1996, it’s been on the books ever since, and in serious injury cases it can easily cost an uninsured driver six figures or more — even when the other driver caused the crash.

Most people only find out about it after it’s too late to fix.

This page is the full explanation. What the law is. What it bars. What it doesn’t. The exceptions that can preserve a full recovery in certain cases. And what to do if you’ve been hit by someone else’s fault and you’re uninsured at the time of the crash.

I’ve practiced personal injury law in California since 2003. Prop 213 is one of the laws I get asked about most, and one of the most misunderstood. Here’s how it actually works.

What Proposition 213 is

Proposition 213 is a California ballot initiative that voters passed in 1996. Its formal name is the Personal Responsibility Act of 1996. It’s codified at California Civil Code 3333.3 and 3333.4. The insurance industry spent heavily to get it passed, and it’s been controversial ever since — but it’s the law, and it applies to every crash in California.

What the law does is restrict the damages an injured person can recover if they fall into one of a few specific categories at the time of the crash. The most common category, by far, is uninsured drivers and owners of uninsured vehicles.

If you were driving without insurance when the crash happened, or if you owned an uninsured vehicle involved in the crash, Prop 213 bars you from recovering non-economic damages — even when the other driver was completely at fault.

That’s the whole mechanism, in one sentence. The consequences of that sentence are what we need to unpack.

What Prop 213 takes away

The damages Prop 213 bars are what California law calls non-economic damages. In plain language, these are the damages you can’t itemize with a receipt:

•         Pain and suffering
•         Physical impairment
•         Disfigurement
•         Emotional distress
•         Loss of enjoyment of life
•         Loss of consortium (the impact on a marriage or family relationship)

If you’ve never been through a serious injury case, you might think these are the “soft” damages — the ones that don’t really matter compared to the medical bills. That assumption is backwards. In most serious injury cases, non-economic damages are the largest part of the recovery. They often dwarf the medical expenses. They’re what compensates you for what the injury actually did to your life, not just to your bank account.

A claimant who loses access to non-economic damages under Prop 213 typically loses more than half of what their case would otherwise be worth. In catastrophic injury cases, the percentage can be much higher.

What Prop 213 does not take away

The damages that remain fully recoverable for uninsured claimants are economic damages. These are the losses with a dollar amount attached:

•         Past medical expenses
•         Future medical expenses (including projected surgeries, therapy, and long-term care)
•         Past lost wages
•         Future lost earning capacity
•         Property damage
•         Any other documented out-of-pocket loss

If your crash resulted in $80,000 in medical bills, $30,000 in lost wages, and a totaled car, all of that is still recoverable even if Prop 213 applies to you. You don’t lose the ability to be made whole financially. What you lose is compensation for what the injury did to you as a person.

That distinction is why Prop 213 feels especially harsh in serious cases. An uninsured driver injured by someone else’s fault can recover every penny they spent on medical care and every dollar they lost from not being able to work — and still walk away with a fraction of what the same claim would be worth if they’d carried insurance at the time of the crash.

How Prop 213 applies — the three categories

The statute applies to three categories of injured people. I’m going to describe each one, because the categories matter, and because the exceptions work differently depending on which category applies.

Category 1: Uninsured owners

If you owned a vehicle involved in the crash, and that vehicle wasn’t insured as California law requires, you’re subject to Prop 213 — whether or not you were driving at the time.

The most common scenario where this matters: you let a friend borrow your uninsured car. Your friend drives it, gets into a crash through no fault of their own, and you’re riding along as a passenger. Under Prop 213, you — the owner — are still barred from non-economic damages. Your friend (the driver, if they weren’t an owner) may be protected by the passenger exception. You aren’t.

Category 2: Uninsured operators

If you were driving a vehicle at the time of the crash, and you can’t establish that you were insured as required by California’s financial responsibility laws, Prop 213 applies to you even if you didn’t own the vehicle.

This is the most common category. It’s the uninsured driver behind the wheel at the time of the crash.

Category 3: Drivers convicted of DUI

A driver who was under the influence at the time of the crash, and who is subsequently convicted under California Vehicle Code §23152 or §23153, is barred from non-economic damages even if they were insured. This is a separate category from uninsured motorists, but it’s part of the same statute.

I’m covering it here for completeness, but it’s not the focus of this page. The bulk of Prop 213 cases I see involve uninsured drivers and owners.

The exceptions — when recovery is preserved

Prop 213 is not absolute. There are specific exceptions where non-economic damages remain recoverable even when the claimant would otherwise be subject to the bar. If you’ve been hit while uninsured, the first question any competent attorney should ask is whether any of these exceptions applies to your case.

Exception 1: The at-fault driver was convicted of DUI

This is the most important exception, and it’s written directly into the statute at §3333.4(c).

If you were uninsured at the time of the crash, but the driver who hit you was later convicted of driving under the influence under Vehicle Code §23152 or §23153, the Prop 213 bar on non-economic damages does not apply to you. You get to recover pain and suffering, emotional distress, and every other category of non-economic damages — same as an insured claimant would.

There are important limits on this exception:

The at-fault driver has to be actually convicted. An arrest alone isn’t enough. Charges filed aren’t enough. You need a conviction under §23152 (driving under the influence, the standard DUI statute) or §23153 (driving under the influence causing injury).

A plea to a lesser offense doesn’t count. If the at-fault driver is charged with DUI but ultimately pleads to a lesser offense — most commonly a “wet reckless” under Vehicle Code 23103.5 — the DUI conviction exception doesn’t apply, and you remain barred from non-economic damages. The statute is specific: it requires a conviction under 23152 or 23153, nothing else.

Timing matters. Criminal cases against DUI drivers often take months or longer to resolve. If you’re uninsured and you’ve been hit by a driver who’s facing DUI charges, the status of that criminal case directly affects the scope of your civil recovery. An attorney involved from early in the case can track the criminal prosecution and coordinate the civil case around the potential conviction.

Exception 2: You were a passenger, and you didn’t own the vehicle

Prop 213 generally does not apply to passengers in an uninsured vehicle. A passenger who doesn’t own the car can recover full damages — economic and non-economic — just like any other injured claimant.

The exception falls away in one specific situation: the passenger is the owner of the uninsured vehicle. I described this earlier. If you own an uninsured car and let a friend drive it while you ride as a passenger, the passenger exception doesn’t save you. You’re still an uninsured owner, and the bar still applies.

Exception 3: The claim is based on non-vehicular negligence

Prop 213 is written narrowly. It applies to damages “arising out of the operation or use of a motor vehicle.” Claims based on other forms of negligence — a defective product, a premises liability case, a negligent third party whose conduct wasn’t motor vehicle operation — may fall outside the statute entirely.

This is a technical exception that depends heavily on the facts of the specific case. A crash caused by a defective tire, for example, may support a separate product liability claim against the tire manufacturer that isn’t subject to Prop 213 even though the underlying incident was a motor vehicle crash. This is the kind of analysis that requires a personal injury attorney who regularly handles complex multi-theory cases.

What Prop 213 means for how you carry insurance

The practical lesson of Prop 213 is straightforward: carry at least the California minimum liability coverage at all times. Not because it protects other people — although it does, and that’s why it’s legally required — but because it protects you.

California’s minimum liability limits increased on January 1, 2025. The current minimums are:

•         $30,000 bodily injury liability per person
•         $60,000 bodily injury liability per accident
•         $15,000 property damage liability

These limits went up from the previous minimums of 15/30/5. If you haven’t looked at your auto policy in a few years, there’s a real possibility you’re still carrying the old minimums, or that you’ve been uninsured without realizing it — a policy that lapsed without your noticing, a payment that didn’t go through, a policy that was cancelled and you didn’t receive the notice. These things happen more often than people expect, and they happen at the worst possible time.

Prop 213 doesn’t care why you were uninsured. It doesn’t matter if your payment was returned by your bank the week before. It doesn’t matter if you tried in good faith to obtain coverage and couldn’t. California courts have specifically held that there’s no “good faith” exception to Prop 213. If you were uninsured at the time of the crash, you fall within the bar, regardless of the reason.

The only protection is to carry insurance continuously. If there’s any doubt about your current coverage status, check it today. It’s the single most important financial decision a California driver can make.

What to do if you’ve been hit while uninsured

If you were uninsured at the time of a crash that wasn’t your fault, Prop 213 probably applies to you — but that doesn’t mean the case is lost, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue it. What it means is that the case needs to be handled carefully, by an attorney who understands the statute and the exceptions, from the beginning.

Here’s what to do.

Get medical treatment

This is true for every personal injury case, and it’s doubly true when Prop 213 may apply. Your economic damages — medical bills, past and future — are still fully recoverable. Good medical documentation is what establishes the value of those damages. Don’t skimp on treatment because you’re worried about cost. If you don’t have health insurance, there are paths to care that don’t require payment at the time of service. Talk to an attorney about it.

Talk to an attorney before talking to any insurance company

If there’s any chance Prop 213 applies to your case, the worst thing you can do is try to handle the claim yourself. The at-fault driver’s insurance company will recognize immediately that you were uninsured. They will use that fact to pressure a quick, low settlement — often for a fraction of what your economic damages alone are worth, let alone what the case might be worth if a Prop 213 exception applies.

An attorney will evaluate whether an exception applies, whether the criminal case against the at-fault driver might produce a DUI conviction, and whether there are other theories of liability that fall outside Prop 213. That evaluation has to happen before the case can be valued properly — and certainly before any settlement is accepted.

Don’t sign anything

Don’t sign anything

Standard advice in any personal injury case, and critical here. A quick release signed in the first weeks after a crash, when you don’t yet know whether the at-fault driver will be convicted of DUI, can permanently eliminate the very exception that would have transformed your recovery. Don’t sign anything until an attorney has evaluated whether Prop 213 applies and whether any exception can be preserved.

Understand your own insurance situation — and fix it going forward

If you were uninsured because of a lapse, a cancellation, or a policy you didn’t realize had ended, get coverage in place now. Every day you remain uninsured is another day you’re exposed to the same consequences all over again. California offers a low-cost auto insurance program for drivers who qualify based on income. There are options. Use them.

The bottom line

Proposition 213 exists to penalize drivers who don’t carry insurance. Whether you think that policy is fair or not, it’s the law, and the financial consequences for uninsured drivers injured in California crashes are severe. Non-economic damages are typically the largest part of any serious injury recovery. Losing them often means losing more than half of what the case is worth.

If you’re a California driver, carry at least the statutory minimum liability coverage, and check your policy regularly to make sure it’s active. If you’ve already been hit while uninsured, the case isn’t automatically lost — exceptions exist, and an experienced personal injury attorney can evaluate whether any of them apply to your situation. But the evaluation has to happen early, and it has to happen before you talk to the other side’s insurance company or sign anything they put in front of you.

If you need to talk to us, call 800-789-8840. Consultations are free. We work on contingency — no fees unless we recover — and we advance all case costs. BANA LAW represents injured Californians in crashes involving every category of Prop 213 issue, and we’ll tell you honestly whether your case falls within an exception or not.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is California Proposition 213?

Proposition 213 is a California law passed by voters in 1996, formally known as the Personal Responsibility Act. It’s codified at California Civil Code §§3333.3 and 3333.4. Its primary effect is to bar uninsured drivers, owners of uninsured vehicles, and drivers convicted of DUI from recovering non-economic damages in motor vehicle injury lawsuits — even when the crash wasn’t their fault.

What damages does Prop 213 prevent me from recovering?

Prop 213 bars non-economic damages, which include pain and suffering, physical impairment, disfigurement, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and loss of consortium. These are often the largest part of a serious injury claim.

What damages can I still recover if Prop 213 applies to me?

Economic damages remain fully recoverable: past and future medical expenses, past and future lost wages, property damage, and other documented out-of-pocket losses. You can recover everything you spent and everything you lost financially. What you can’t recover is compensation for what the injury did to your quality of life.

Can I still recover anything if I was uninsured when the crash happened?

Yes. Your economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, property damage — are still fully recoverable. And if one of the exceptions applies (most commonly, if the at-fault driver is convicted of DUI), non-economic damages may be recoverable too. Don’t assume your case is worthless. Talk to an attorney.

What’s the DUI exception to Prop 213?

If you were uninsured at the time of the crash, but the driver who hit you is subsequently convicted of driving under the influence under California Vehicle Code §23152 or §23153, the Prop 213 bar on non-economic damages does not apply to you. The exception requires an actual DUI conviction. A plea to a lesser offense — like a “wet reckless” under §23103.5 — does not trigger the exception.

Does Prop 213 apply to passengers in an uninsured vehicle?

Generally, no. Passengers in an uninsured vehicle can recover full damages unless the passenger is also the owner of the uninsured vehicle. If you own an uninsured car and let someone else drive it while you ride as a passenger, you remain subject to Prop 213 because of your status as the uninsured owner.

My insurance lapsed without me realizing it. Does Prop 213 still apply?

Yes. California courts have consistently held that there’s no “good faith” exception to Prop 213. If your policy had lapsed at the time of the crash — whether you knew it or not — you’re treated as uninsured under the statute. This is why it’s critical to verify your coverage status regularly, especially after any change in your billing information or insurance carrier.

What are California’s current minimum liability insurance limits?

As of January 1, 2025, the minimums are $30,000 bodily injury liability per person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 property damage liability — up from the previous minimums of $15,000 / $30,000 / $5,000. Carrying at least the statutory minimum is both a legal requirement and the only protection against Prop 213.

What should I do if I was hit by another driver but I was uninsured at the time?

Get medical care, don’t talk to the at-fault driver’s insurance company, don’t sign anything, and consult a personal injury attorney as soon as possible. An attorney will evaluate whether any Prop 213 exception applies to your case — including whether the at-fault driver might be convicted of DUI, which could preserve your full recovery. That evaluation needs to happen before any settlement is considered.

Talk to a BANA LAW Attorney

Consultations are free, carry no obligation, and are conducted by a BANA LAW attorney — not a screener. We come to you when you can’t come to us: by phone, by video, in person at our Los Angeles office, by appointment in San Bernardino or Fresno, at your home, or at your bedside if you’re hospitalized.

BANA LAW operates on a contingency fee basis. No fees unless we win. No upfront fees. No costs to advance. The firm operates bilingually in English and Spanish, and every member of the team is bilingual.

Call 800-789-8840.