The first insurance money after a wreck in the Nob Hill area is often not a settlement from the other driver. It is personal injury protection on an Oregon auto policy. Section 742.520 requires every motor vehicle liability policy issued for delivery in this state that covers a private passenger motor vehicle to provide personal injury protection benefits to the person insured under the policy, members of that person’s family residing in the same household, certain children residing in the household and being reared as the insured’s own, passengers occupying the insured motor vehicle, and pedestrians struck by the insured motor vehicle.
That is a policy benefit, not a verdict. It can pay early treatment even while fault is still being sorted out under section 31.600. It does not replace a later claim for the rest of the loss, and it does not stop the two-year period from running in section 12.110. Open the PIP claim promptly, then keep the rest of the file moving.
What PIP has to include
Section 742.524 sets out the contents of the required benefits for the injury or death of each person. Medical, hospital, dental, surgical, ambulance and prosthetic expenses that are reasonable and necessary, incurred within two years after the date of the person’s injury, are covered, but not more than $15,000 in the aggregate for all such expenses of that person. Expenses in those categories are presumed reasonable and necessary unless the provider receives a denial notice within the time the statute describes.
If disability continues for at least 14 days, PIP also pays 70 percent of the loss of income, subject to a maximum payment of $3,000 per month and a maximum payment period of 52 weeks. Funeral expenses are also addressed in the same section, with a maximum of $5,000. The statute allows deductibles of up to $250 on the medical, income-loss and funeral categories named in that subsection. Read the policy declarations and 742.524 together. A rider that tries to shrink a required benefit below the statute is a question for a lawyer, not a reason to assume the cut is valid.
Who should make the claim
PIP follows the policy, not only the person who was driving. A passenger in a Portland car may look first to the host vehicle’s PIP. A pedestrian struck by an insured private passenger vehicle is named in 742.520(1)(a) as a person to whom those benefits are provided. A person who lives in the insured’s household may be covered even when the wreck involves a different car. Ask which policies in the household might apply, and open the claim early. Do not wait for the other driver’s insurer to volunteer a medical payment.
If the vehicle was being used in affiliation with a transportation network company, 742.520(1)(b) requires that company to provide a motor vehicle liability policy with personal injury protection benefits to each driver who operates a personal motor vehicle in that affiliation. Subsection (1)(d) says those benefits must, while the driver is operating to provide transportation services to passengers in affiliation with the company, cover the driver, any passenger and pedestrians. Our rideshare guide returns to that rule. Save the app screens that show the trip status when the wreck happened.
PIP is primary, and it is not the whole case
Oregon treats these benefits as a first-party payment. They can take pressure off a hospital billing office while the liability claim is still being built. They do not decide fault. They do not satisfy a later judgment by themselves. A household limited by the 806.070 floors of $25,000 and $50,000 for injury, and $20,000 for property damage, may still need uninsured or underinsured coverage under section 742.502. A claim for human losses still has to get past comparative fault and the two-year filing period.
If hospital statements are already in the mail and no first-party claim has been opened, contact your own insurer and ask about the medical benefit and the income-loss coverage on the policy. Ask the carrier to put the claim number in writing. Keep every bill you submit against that number. Then read the fault and deadline guides so the rest of the file is not neglected while those bills are being handled. Talk with an Oregon injury lawyer, and look up whether the license is still active, if the injuries are going to last, or if a public vehicle was involved.
Keep PIP and the liability file on two tracks
A PIP claim can be opened while you are still requesting a Portland Police report, still photographing the intersection and still deciding whether to hire counsel. Those tasks do not have to happen in a single afternoon, but they should not wait until the first large hospital bill is in collections. Our first-week guide is a practical order of work. Our report guide explains why most Portland crashes cannot be reported through the City’s online tool and how to request a copy of a report that already exists.
If an insurer also sends an early check and calls it an advance payment, read section 12.155 before you treat that check as harmless. A missing notice about the expiration of the limitation period can change how the two-year clock runs. Keep the check, the envelope and any form that arrived with it. Our deadline guide covers that rule in more detail. PIP payments and advance payments are not the same thing, and they should not be stacked together in one folder without labels.
Government-vehicle crashes add still another track. The 180-day notice in section 30.275 is a condition on the later lawsuit, not something PIP takes care of for you. Send the notice if a public body may be involved, even if first-party medical bills are already being paid. Confirm the current filing hours at the Multnomah County Courthouse, 1200 SW 1st Ave, before you go downtown, and confirm that any lawyer you hire holds a current Oregon license.