Who pays for repairs if the other driver was at fault in Minnesota?

Vehicle damage follows fault, even though injuries do not

Minnesota’s no-fault system applies to injuries. Your own personal injury protection (PIP) coverage pays your medical bills and wage loss regardless of who caused the crash. That is what people mean when they call Minnesota a no-fault state.

Property damage works the opposite way. The driver who caused the crash is responsible for the damage to your vehicle, and their liability property damage coverage is what pays for it. Fault matters here, and it is the reason the police report, the photos, and the witness names you collected at the scene are worth keeping.

So a single crash can involve two different coverages moving at the same time: your PIP for any injuries, and the other driver’s liability for your car.

You have two routes to a repaired car

Both routes end with your vehicle restored to pre-accident condition. They differ in who writes the check first and what it costs you up front.

• Third-party claim — you file against the at-fault driver’s insurance. No deductible, and your own policy is not the one paying. Slower when fault is unclear.
• First-party claim — you use your own collision coverage. You pay your deductible up front, the repair starts sooner, and your insurance company pursues the other insurance company for reimbursement.
• Either way, you choose the repair shop. Minnesota law forbids an insurance company from requiring a particular shop.
• If your insurance company recovers from the at-fault insurance company, your deductible is normally refunded to you — that process is called subrogation.

What the at-fault insurance company actually owes

The standard is the reasonable cost of returning the vehicle to the condition it was in before the crash. That is broader than a bumper and a coat of paint.

A complete third-party claim usually includes parts and labor, refinish and blend time, corrosion protection, sensor and camera calibrations that the manufacturer requires after the repair, towing from the scene, storage while the claim opens, and a reasonable rental for the repair period because you lost the use of your car.

If the crash was clearly the other driver’s fault, Minnesota also generally allows a diminished value claim against their insurance for the resale value your car lost by having an accident on its history.

When fault is disputed or the other insurance company stalls

Do not let your car sit while two insurance companies discuss liability. Adjusters investigate at their own pace, and storage fees and rental costs accumulate the whole time.

The practical move is to open the repair on your own collision coverage, pay the deductible, and let subrogation sort out the money. Your insurance company has a financial interest in proving the other driver was at fault, and it has the leverage to do it.

If liability is genuinely split, Minnesota applies comparative fault, meaning each party’s recovery is reduced by their own share of the blame. How that math lands in your case is a legal question, not a body shop question.

The first 48 hours matter more than the next two weeks

Liability gets decided from a thin file, and that file is built in the first two days. What you do immediately after the crash affects a third-party claim more than anything that happens later.

You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company, and it is reasonable to say you will provide one after you have the police report in hand. A casual sentence at the scene — "I didn’t see them" — can be read back weeks later as something you did not mean.

Be equally careful with an early settlement offer. A check that arrives before the vehicle has been torn down is based on visible damage only, and signing a release to cash it can close out the supplement you will need once the bumper cover comes off.

Neither of those is a reason to be suspicious of an adjuster. Claim handlers work with the information in front of them, and the large majority of these files settle professionally. It simply costs nothing to slow down for two days.

Keep everything in one folder — the report, the photographs, the estimate, every supplement, and the final invoice. That is the file that supports a diminished value claim later, and it is what your own insurance company uses if it ends up pursuing recovery.

Before the details fade, work down this list:

• Get the police report number, and request the report once it is available
• Photograph both vehicles, the scene, and the position of the cars before anything is moved
• Collect witness names and phone numbers — witnesses stop being reachable quickly
• Open a file with the other driver’s insurance company and with your own, even if you only plan to use one
• Ask the other insurance company directly whether it is accepting liability, and note the answer and the date
• Get the vehicle to a repair shop rather than an impound lot, where storage fees run daily

How we handle a not-at-fault repair

Call us at (651) 460-9996 with the claim number and the other driver’s insurance company, and we take it from there. We accept every insurance company, we meet the adjuster at our shop in Savage, and we file supplements directly when teardown finds damage the first estimate could not see.

You get a written estimate and timeline before work starts, an OEM parts promise when you or the insurance company pays for OEM, and a lifetime warranty on our paint and refinish work.

This page is general information from a repair shop, not legal advice. Your policy language and the specific facts of your crash decide what gets paid — talk to your agent or an attorney about anything that turns on liability.