Motor vehicle lawsuits are growing five times faster than the broader federal civil court system. A new analysis from the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) shows the gap has been widening for a decade.
Federal motor vehicle tort filings reached 6,809 in 2024, the highest annual figure in the study's dataset stretching back to 1995, according to the white paper Motor Vehicle Tort Litigation Continues to Outpace Claims Frequency. From 2014 to 2024, those filings grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.0 percent. Over the same period, overall federal civil case frequency declined at a CAGR of 0.9 percent. The divergence is the report's central finding, and it is not explained by accident frequency. Litigation is outpacing the number of underlying claims, rather than tracking it.
Motor vehicle tort cases settle at more than double the rate of civil cases overall. Approximately 52.4 percent of disposed cases from 2015 to 2024 settled out of court. Only 7.1 percent received a judgment disposition, compared with 27.4 percent for civil cases overall.
That high settlement rate shapes how carriers price and reserve. Most motor vehicle tort exposure closes without a trial, but settlement values have trended upward with case volume. The average plaintiff award in federal motor vehicle tort judgments rose from $377,000 during 1995 to 2004, to $681,000 during 2015 to 2024. That figure sits 15.8 percent above the comparable total civil case award in the most recent decade.
The report also breaks filings down by liability framework. From 2015 to 2024, federal motor vehicle tort filings grew at a CAGR of 4.6 percent in no-fault states and 6.2 percent in tort states.
Triple-I and CAS estimate the combined excess value of motor vehicle tort litigation across federal and state courts at approximately $43.84 billion from 2015 to 2024. The federal portion accounts for approximately $1.07 billion of that total. The bulk, approximately $42.77 billion, comes from state courts.
The state-level figure carries a caveat the report is explicit about. Thorough motor vehicle tort data is publicly available in only 11 states. Those states represent about 50.6 percent of the US population. The report uses two separate methodologies to extrapolate from those states, blends the results, and cautions that the estimates should be read with that limitation in mind.
For context, a prior Triple-I and CAS joint analysis estimated $143.6 billion to $173.1 billion in total auto liability increasing inflation over the same period. The $43.84 billion excess litigation figure represents approximately 25.3 to 30.5 percent of that range.
"The data show a growing disconnect between motor vehicle tort litigation and underlying claims frequency," said Sean Kevelighan, CEO of Triple-I. "The continued growth in litigation is another indication of how legal system abuse is adding to auto liability costs, ultimately affecting premiums."
Commercial auto has absorbed the sharper end of this pressure. The line posted a $4.9 billion underwriting loss in 2024, its 14th consecutive year of losses, according to AM Best. The loss and loss adjustment expense ratio for commercial auto liability reached 87.6 that year, the highest in 11 years. The prior year's Triple-I and CAS analysis examined how legal system abuse adds to auto insurance costs across the same litigation trend.
Morgan Bugbee, CAS vice president for research and practice advancement, said the findings point to a measurement gap as much as a litigation one. "Changes in litigation activity, amounts demanded or awarded, and claim severity also contribute to insurance losses," Bugbee said. "Comprehensive and consistent court data would help actuaries, researchers and policymakers assess these relationships more precisely."
That data gap has direct consequences for loss modeling. When state-level filing and disposition records are incomplete or inconsistent, reserve adequacy becomes harder to assess in the lines most exposed to litigation trends.
