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The U.S. Experience With No-Fault Automobile Insurance, Paul Heaton

Paul Heaton

No-fault automobile-insurance regimes were the culmination of decades of dissatisfaction with the use of the traditional tort system for compensating victims of automobile accidents. They promised quicker, fairer, less-contentious, and, it was hoped, less-expensive resolution of automobile-accident injuries. This monograph considers how these plans have fared. After reviewing the intellectual and political history of no-fault auto insurance, the monograph concludes that no-fault lost political popularity because of the perception that it did not deliver the promised consumer premium cost reductions. Analysis of data from a variety of sources confirms this view, demonstrating that premiums and claim costs have become substantially …