Quick Answer
In a hit and run you can be left injured with a damaged vehicle and no at-fault driver to hold responsible. The coverage that answers is uninsured motorist coverage, and in Kentucky you have it unless you rejected it in writing. Under KRS 304.20-020 no auto liability policy may be issued in Kentucky without uninsured motorist coverage at the state’s minimum bodily injury limits, subject to the named insured’s written rejection. Underinsured motorist coverage is different: under KRS 304.39-320 an insurer only has to make it available on request. Separately, your own basic reparation benefits pay your medical bills and wage loss up to $10,000 no matter who hit you, and the driver who left the scene broke KRS 189.580.
Hit and run accidents are the worst of both worlds. You are injured, your vehicle is damaged, and the driver at fault is nowhere to be seen. If the other driver can never be tracked down, your own policy is what stands between you and the bill, provided you have the right coverage. The fact that the driver may never be seen again does not have to be the end of your recovery.
What’s a Hit and Run Accident?
It is a driver involved in an accident who leaves the scene without stopping. The driver does not provide identification or insurance information and does not offer assistance before the police arrive. It is not only irresponsible. It is a violation of Kentucky law.
KRS 189.580 spells out what that driver was required to do. Subsection (1)(a) requires the operator of a vehicle involved in an accident that results in injury to or death of any person, or that damages a vehicle or other property that is driven or attended by a person, to immediately stop, ascertain the extent of the injury or damage, and render reasonable assistance, including arranging transport to a physician, surgeon, or hospital if treatment is plainly necessary or if the injured person asks for it. The same subsection requires the driver, on request, to give the registration number of the vehicle and the names and addresses of the owner, the occupants, and the operator.
The duty does not disappear when nobody is standing there. Under KRS 189.580(2), a driver who hits an unattended vehicle or other property has to stop and either locate the owner and give a name, address, and registration number, or leave that information securely in a conspicuous place on the vehicle or property, or file a report with the local police department. A driver who does none of those things and simply leaves has committed the offense that people call a hit and run.
Two further duties in the statute matter to you, the person who was hit. KRS 189.580(6)(a) requires the operator of a vehicle involved in a Kentucky highway crash that results in a fatality, a known or visible injury, or damage that renders a vehicle inoperable to immediately notify a public safety answering point or law enforcement, if physically able and in possession of a working communications device, and subsection (6)(b) shifts that duty to the owner or an occupant if the operator cannot. And KRS 189.580(7) requires a written report to the Department of Kentucky State Police within ten days where a highway crash caused injury or death, or property damage totalling $500 or more, and no law enforcement officer investigated. If your hit and run was never worked by an officer, that ten day report is on you.
Who Leaves an Accident Without Offering Help?
The honest answer is that you usually never find out. A driver may not want to face the consequences of the crash. A driver may be impaired and afraid of arrest, or impaired enough not to register that a collision happened at all. A driver may have no insurance, a suspended license, or a warrant. We do not speculate about a fleeing driver’s motives in a claim, because motive is not what your recovery depends on.
One piece of practical advice does follow from all of it. Do not get into an argument with another driver after a crash, even one who is behaving badly. An angry exchange gives a driver who then leaves the scene a story to tell about feeling threatened, and it gives an adjuster something to work with later. Take photographs, write down what you saw, and let the police handle the confrontation.
What Should I Do If I’m Involved in a Hit and Run Accident?
If you are hurt in a hit and run, call the police. Not only might you or a passenger be injured, the other driver has violated KRS 189.580. Tell the officer everything you can recall about the other vehicle, because you never know what will matter to the investigation. If all you can describe is a blue pickup, and police later find a damaged blue pickup in a parking lot with paint from your vehicle on it, that is where charges start.
If the crash happened on a city street there is a real chance it was captured on camera, whether on a traffic signal, a nearby business, or a doorbell at a house. Statements from witnesses, including your own passengers, can be what lets police identify the driver. If they do, that driver can be pursued for negligence like any other at-fault motorist.
Report the crash to your own insurer promptly as well. An uninsured motorist claim for a driver who was never identified is a contract claim against your own carrier, and policies typically impose their own prompt notice and police report conditions on exactly this situation. Missing a notice condition is one of the few ways to lose an otherwise good hit and run claim, so read the policy or have someone read it with you.
Why is Insurance Important for a Hit and Run Accident?
Get the coverage before you need it, because you cannot buy it afterward. Three separate layers of a Kentucky auto policy can respond to a hit and run, and they are not the same thing.
First, your own basic reparation benefits. Under KRS 304.39-030, every person suffering loss from injury arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle in Kentucky has a right to basic reparation benefits, the no-fault coverage most people call PIP, and it does not matter who caused the crash or whether that person was ever found. KRS 304.39-020 caps those benefits at $10,000 for all economic loss per person per accident, including up to $5,000 for funeral, cremation, and burial costs, and that section was amended effective July 15, 2026.
Second, uninsured motorist coverage. This is the layer people misunderstand. KRS 304.20-020 says no auto liability policy may be delivered or issued for delivery in Kentucky for a vehicle registered or principally garaged here unless uninsured motorist coverage is provided, at the bodily injury limits set out in KRS 304.39-110, for the protection of insureds who are legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle. The named insured has the right to reject that coverage in writing, and a rejection binds every insured under the policy. So it is not accurate to call uninsured motorist coverage simply optional in Kentucky. You have it unless someone signed it away. Check your declarations page and find out which one is true for you.
The statute also defines uninsured motor vehicle more broadly than the phrase suggests. Under KRS 304.20-020(2) it includes an insured vehicle whose liability insurer cannot pay because of insolvency, an insured vehicle whose liability limits are below the KRS 304.39-110 minimums, and an insured vehicle whose liability coverage the insurer denies. Where the driver who hit you is never identified at all, whether your policy treats that as an uninsured motor vehicle is a question of the policy language, which is why the police report and prompt notice matter so much.
Third, underinsured motorist coverage, which is a genuinely different animal. KRS 304.39-320 requires every insurer to make underinsured motorist coverage available to its insureds on request. That is opt in, not opt out, so if nobody ever asked for it you probably do not have it. It matters when the other driver is found and does have insurance, just not enough of it. The same statute contains a trap worth knowing before you sign anything: if you are going to settle with the at-fault driver’s liability insurer for an amount that will not fully compensate you, written notice of the proposed settlement has to go to every underinsured motorist insurer by certified or registered mail, and that insurer then has thirty days either to consent or to preserve its subrogation rights by paying you the amount of the liability insurer’s offer.
Kentucky’s mandatory minimums are the reason all of this comes up. Under KRS 304.39-110, and as summarised by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, a driver satisfies the requirement with split limits of at least:
- $25,000 for bodily injury per person
- $50,000 for bodily injury per accident
- $25,000 for property damage per accident
A single limit of at least $60,000 covering bodily injury and property damage combined satisfies the requirement instead. If you are severely injured, need surgery, and have a lengthy hospital stay, you can exhaust $25,000 in a matter of days. That is the gap uninsured and underinsured coverage is built to fill, and it is why we tell people to buy the most they can afford rather than the least the law allows. Our explainer on how car insurance works in Kentucky walks through the whole structure, and if you are trying to understand what is driving your premium, see why vehicle insurance costs what it does.
One more piece. If a hit and run kills someone, the family’s claim runs through KRS 411.130, which requires that a wrongful death action be prosecuted by the personal representative of the person who died and sets out how any recovery is divided. Death is also one of the injuries listed in KRS 304.39-060, so the no-fault limitation on claiming pain and suffering does not stand in the family’s way.
Why Should I Hire Tyler Fleck If I’m Injured in a Hit and Run Accident?
Because in a hit and run the company on the other side of the negotiation is your own. Your insurer investigates the claim and makes an offer, and the fact that you paid premiums for years does not mean it will volunteer what the claim is worth. Kentucky law does set standards. KRS 304.12-230 makes it an unfair claims settlement practice to fail to act reasonably promptly on claim communications, to refuse to pay a claim without conducting a reasonable investigation based on all available information, to fail to attempt in good faith to effectuate a prompt, fair and equitable settlement where liability has become reasonably clear, and to compel an insured to sue by offering substantially less than the amount ultimately recovered. KRS 304.12-235 requires claims to be paid within thirty days of the date notice and proof of claim are furnished in the form the policy requires, adds interest at twelve percent per year where the insurer fails to make a good faith attempt to settle inside that window, and entitles the insured to reasonable attorney’s fees where the delay was without reasonable foundation.
If a carrier will not be reasonable in negotiation, we can file suit and try the case, and the absence of the driver who caused the crash does not prevent that. Do not wait to get advice about timing either. Under KRS 304.39-230, a motor vehicle claim generally must be brought no later than two years after the injury or death or after the date of the last basic or added reparation payment, whichever occurs later, and your policy may impose its own shorter contractual deadline for an uninsured motorist claim. KRS 304.14-370 does bar a policy from cutting the time to sue a foreign insurer below one year from accrual, but one year is not much runway. Get the dates checked early.
Hit by a Driver Who Drove Away in Kentucky?
A driver who leaves you at the roadside is counting on the case ending there. It does not have to. The Fleck Firm, PLLC was founded by attorney Tyler M. Fleck, a U.S. Army veteran who built his practice to serve people throughout Kentucky. We will pull your declarations page, tell you whether uninsured motorist coverage is actually on it or was rejected in writing, make sure the police report and the notice conditions are satisfied, and then deal with your carrier so you do not have to negotiate against your own insurance company while you are still healing.
