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A Yellow Cab Carries Four Times the Insurance of a Private Car
A New York City taxi crash claim runs against the medallion owner's commercial policy, and city rules require that policy to carry at least $100,000 per person.
A private car only has to carry $25,000.
If you were in the back seat, on foot, or on a bike, the cab's own no-fault coverage pays your medical bills and lost wages first, up to $100,000 per person.
Pain and suffering comes through a claim against the owner, once your injury clears New York's serious injury threshold.
The medallion number on the cab leads to the owner, the insurer, and the policy number through the TLC's own records.
Write it down before the cab leaves the scene, along with the driver's name and TLC license number.
Our Astoria office reviews New York taxi claims at no cost, and you pay nothing unless we recover. Call (888) 713-6653.
At a Glance: NYC Taxi Accident Claims
- A yellow or green cab must carry at least $100,000 per person and $300,000 per crash in bodily injury coverage
- Passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists hit by a cab claim no-fault benefits from the cab's insurer, up to $100,000 per person
- The driver of another car claims no-fault from their own policy first
- The owner answers for a permitted driver's negligence under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 388
- For cases filed since May 26, 2026, a claimant more at fault than the defendants recovers nothing
- Thirty days to give the no-fault insurer written notice; three years to sue under CPLR § 214(5)
Whose No-Fault Coverage Pays After a NYC Taxi Crash?
The TLC's own crash reports counted 1,545 yellow cabs involved in crashes in 2025, and 726 of them were in crashes that injured someone.[1] Where your first dollar comes from depends on where you were when the cab hit.
You Were Riding in the Cab
A passenger is an occupant of the taxi, so the taxi's insurer pays your no-fault benefits: medical treatment, most of your lost earnings, and other reasonable expenses, whoever caused the crash.[2] Written notice has to reach that insurer within 30 days, which is the deadline behind the NF-2 application it will send you.
You Were on Foot or on a Bike
A pedestrian or cyclist struck by a cab claims no-fault from the cab's insurer too, even with an auto policy at home. The same is true for a cyclist hit by a door, and our page on a passenger opening a door into a bike lane covers who owes that duty.
You Were Driving the Car the Cab Hit
Your own auto policy pays your no-fault benefits first. New York lets that insurer recover what it paid from the cab's insurer through mandatory arbitration when the cab carries people for hire, and that fight happens between the two carriers without touching your claim.
For a passenger, a pedestrian, or a cyclist, the cab's no-fault limit is twice a private car's. A private policy pays $50,000 in basic no-fault benefits per person, and a medallion cab's policy has to pay up to $100,000 per person for the same expenses.[3] The TLC set that figure at $200,000 until March 1, 2026, so a crash before that date may sit under a larger policy.[4]
For a passenger facing surgery and months off work, the second $50,000 arrives without anyone proving who caused the crash.
The $100,000 Medallion Policy Against a Private Car's 25/50 Minimum
The gap matters in the cases that need it most, where a private car's policy is gone after the first surgery.
| Vehicle | Bodily injury minimum (per person / per crash) | No-fault benefits per person | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private car | $25,000 / $50,000 | $50,000 | New York minimum |
| Yellow medallion taxi | $100,000 / $300,000 | $100,000 | 35 RCNY § 58-13(d)(1) |
| Green cab (Street Hail Livery) | $100,000 / $300,000 | $100,000 | 35 RCNY § 82-14(d) |
Those are floors. Since January 1, 2026, an owner can meet the minimum with a primary policy plus an excess policy from a carrier authorized in New York, and the coverage has to run around the clock rather than only during a shift.
The per-crash figure deserves attention when more than one person was hurt. A cab that hits a car with three people in it, while carrying a passenger of its own, may put four claimants against the same $300,000. A private car's $50,000 per-crash limit is the reason our page on New York's 25/50/10 minimum tells passengers to search for a second policy before signing anything.
Against a cab's policy, a serious injury that would exhaust a private car's coverage at the first operation can be valued for the surgery, the lost work, and the years after it.
How to Find the Cab's Owner and Insurer From the Medallion Number
You do not need the driver's cooperation or a call from the fleet to learn who insures a New York cab.
At the Scene
A TLC-licensed driver in a crash has to stop and give the driver's name, TLC license number, insurer, and policy number, and then notify the vehicle's owner.[5] Photograph the medallion number and the plate even if the driver hands you a card. Every driver in a crash that injured someone also has to report it to the DMV within 10 days.
From the TLC's Public Records
The TLC publishes a vehicle insurance file, updated daily, that lists each licensed vehicle's insurer, policy number, owner, and agent. NYC Open Data carries the Medallion Vehicles dataset, which ties every authorized medallion to its owner, plate, VIN, and managing agent.[6] Between the two, a medallion number identifies the company to put on notice.
What the TLC Will and Will Not Do
The TLC licenses drivers and vehicles and can suspend a driver after a crash that kills or critically injures someone. It does not handle insurance claims. A complaint to the TLC can lead to a rule prosecution against the driver, which is a separate track from your claim for money.
The police crash report is now the MV-104P, after the DMV moved to its new crash records system in February 2026. Ask for it by that name when you request it.
With the owner and the policy number in hand, the claim can go to the right carrier in the first week.
Why the Medallion Owner Answers for the Driver Under VTL § 388
New York holds a vehicle's owner responsible when someone the owner allowed to drive it causes a crash.[7] In the taxi business, that rule decides whose policy is in your case, because the person behind the wheel often does not own the cab.
Owner-Drivers
Some medallions must be driven by their owners. The owner, the driver, and the policy are the same company or person, and the claim is direct.
Lease Drivers
Many drivers lease a cab and medallion by the shift or the week. The lease driver is a permitted user, so the owner's policy answers for the driver's negligence. Under a cab-plus-medallion lease, the TLC rules also keep the owner responsible for maintaining the vehicle.
A medallion cab makes money only when it's moving. The owner wants it repaired and back on the street as quickly as possible. We want the opposite to happen first: preserve the brakes, tires, and damaged components before a repair shop replaces them. Those parts can establish whether the owner failed to maintain the cab, creating a second liability claim beyond the driver's conduct.
Agents and Fleets
Many owners hire an agent to manage the medallion. An agent that owns neither the cab nor the medallion and has no control over how it runs is usually not liable, so the claim stays aimed at the owner and the owner's carrier.
One question is still open in New York. A federal law, the Graves Amendment, shields car-rental companies from owner liability for their renters, and taxi lessors have argued it covers them. A trial court rejected that for leased medallions, and no New York appellate court has settled it.
For you, the owner's policy stays in the case whether or not a lease driver carries any insurance of their own.
Does Your Injury Clear New York's 2026 Serious Injury Threshold?
No-fault pays your bills and most of your lost wages. Pain and suffering takes a serious injury under Insurance Law § 5102(d), and for cases filed on or after May 26, 2026, the list is shorter.[8]
Eight categories remain: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, a fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function, or system, permanent consequential limitation of use, and significant limitation of use. The category that used to cover an injury that kept you from your usual activities for 90 of the first 180 days is gone.
A broken bone qualifies on its own. A torn shoulder or a herniated disc has to be documented into one of the limitation categories, with measured range-of-motion findings and imaging, and that proof is strongest when it starts at the first orthopedic visit. Our page on what each surviving threshold category requires sets out the proof for all eight.
The order of the trial changed too. A jury now decides fault before it decides whether your injury is serious, which puts the crash itself at the front of the case.
When Your Fault Share Can End a Taxi Claim Under CPLR § 1411(b)
For motor vehicle cases filed on or after May 26, 2026, New York bars any recovery by an injured person whose fault outweighs the defendant's, or outweighs the combined fault of every defendant in the case.[9] An even split still recovers half. A 51 percent share recovers nothing.
A passenger in the back seat rarely carries any share at all. A pedestrian who crossed mid-block or a cyclist the cab cut off is in a different position, and the new bar likely reaches those claims, though no court has ruled on that edge yet. Our page on New York's 2026 fault bar walks through how the shares are weighed.
Because the comparison runs against every defendant you sue, naming the cab's owner, the driver, and any second car that contributed can keep a pedestrian's share under the line.
What Happens When the Cab's Policy Cannot Pay the Whole Claim
A $100,000 policy is generous next to a private car's, and it can still fall far short of a spinal fusion, a brain injury, or a death.
Your Own Household Policy
Your own auto policy, or the policy of a relative you live with, may carry supplementary underinsured motorist (SUM) coverage that follows you as a passenger or a pedestrian when the cab's limits run out. Whether it does turns on the policy language, so read the policy before assuming it does not apply.
The Owner and the Medallion
A judgment above the policy belongs to the owner, and a medallion is an asset the TLC will not let change hands until open excess claims have been noticed and covered. The box below covers how a claimant gets on the TLC's list.
An Insurer That Fails
When an insurer of for-hire vehicles becomes insolvent, New York's public motor vehicle liability security fund pays allowed claims that the insurer leaves unpaid.[10] The fund has its own claim process and its own limits, and a claim against it moves on its own schedule.
The Valid Claim Letter That Protects a Claim Above the Policy
Before a taxi medallion can be sold, the TLC requires the seller to find and notify everyone holding a potential excess claim, meaning a claim for more than the insurance on the cab when the crash happened, and to cover those claims with an escrow or a bond.[3]
One way onto that list is a Valid Claim Letter filed with the TLC. It has to state a claim large enough to be an excess claim, attach the police report, and confirm that the owner received a copy. It counts only if it is dated within a year of the transfer paperwork, so it has to be renewed while the case runs.
We put an excess claim on the TLC's list long before we put a number on the case. The letter only has to show the claim is larger than the policy, and with a spinal fusion or a brain injury against $100,000 that is clear within weeks, while the full value can take a year or more of treatment to know.
How Much Is a New York City Taxi Accident Case Worth?
There is no formula, and anyone who quotes a number before seeing your records is guessing. Value comes from a short list of facts:
- The injury and its threshold category - A fracture or a surgery carries the case past the threshold and drives the pain and suffering value
- The policy and any excess layer - $100,000 per person at the floor, more where the owner bought more
- Who else is claiming - Several injured people can share the $300,000 per-crash limit
- Lost earnings above no-fault - The full wage loss and lost earning capacity beyond what no-fault paid
- Your share of fault, if any - Reduced in proportion, or barred above the defendants' combined share
New York puts no cap on pain and suffering in an ordinary taxi case, so the ceiling is usually the coverage, and coverage is where a private-car crash and a taxi crash part ways. One New York motorcycle crash we handled, caused by a driver taken into custody for drunk driving, resolved at $25,000 because that was every dollar the driver's private policy held. Against a cab, the same injuries would have met a policy four times that size. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Our page on how New York car crash settlements are valued covers the factors in more depth.
How Long Do You Have to File After a NYC Cab Crash?
The first deadline arrives long before the lawsuit deadline, and missing it costs the no-fault benefits that pay for treatment.
- 30 days - Written notice to the no-fault insurer, usually the NF-2 application
- 45 days - For medical providers to bill the no-fault carrier after treatment
- Three years - To sue the owner and driver for personal injury under CPLR § 214(5)[11]
- Two years - For a wrongful death claim when a taxi crash takes a life
- 60 days and one year - Notice and suit against the Port Authority, if the claim is about an airport taxi stand rather than the cab[12]
If a city-owned vehicle was involved, the 90-day notice of claim applies to that part of the case. The full list of time limits is on our page about New York injury filing deadlines.
The filing date also decides which version of the law governs your case, because the 2026 threshold and fault rules apply to cases commenced on or after May 26, 2026.