Kentucky Injury Law News
Beginning tomorrow, significant new benefits become available to many Kentuckians with auto insurance. The number one change is increasing the wage-loss benefit—from $200 to $500 per week—for people who cannot work because of injuries suffered in a motor vehicle collision. But only policies that are newly issued or renewed after July 15, 2026, will include the new benefits. Our advice: Don’t wait for your next renewal! Motorists should contact their insurance agent now and ask whether their existing automobile policies can be replaced or rewritten with new policies issued on or after July 15, 2026.
The reason is important: House Bill 627 (full text here), Kentucky’s new Personal Injury Protection law, applies only to PIP benefits issued or renewed on or after July 15, 2026. Merely being injured after July 15 is not enough to invoke the benefits of the new law. If your current policy was issued before July 15, the old law continues to apply until your next renewal, and you will not be entitled to the increased benefits.
Do not simply cancel your current insurance and risk a gap in coverage. Ask your agent to replace or rewrite the policy, confirm the effective date in writing, and make sure the replacement policy is fully bound before the old policy ends. Also verify that the new policy does not reduce your liability, uninsured-motorist, underinsured-motorist, collision, or comprehensive coverage. We have seen a trend of clients cancelling their UIM (underinsured motorist) coverage to save only a few dollars on their premiums. That is almost always a mistake because, in nearly every serious-injury collision, the at-fault driver is underinsured.