What changed in Rhode Island
Insurance law does not sit still, but most guides are written once and left alone. Repealed programs and retired forms keep circulating for years. This is what actually changed inRhode Island, when, and where to verify it.
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April 1, 2027
Minimum coverageInsurers must offer underinsured motorist property damage coverage (enacted, not yet in force)
P.L. 2026, ch. 388 (H 7520 Substitute A) and ch. 389 (S 2633 Substitute A), both enacted June 19, 2026, add a new subsection (c) to R.I. Gen. Laws § 27-7-2.1 requiring every insurer to offer underinsured motorist property damage coverage for private passenger automobiles, and letting it be offered together with uninsured motorist property damage coverage. Buying it stays optional — no insured is obligated to purchase it, and an insured without collision coverage may reject it in writing. The act also splits the old definition of "uninsured motorist" into separate definitions of underinsured motorist bodily injury and underinsured motorist property damage. It takes effect on April 1, 2027; nothing about the 25/50/25 liability minimums changes.
Rhode Island General Assembly — Public Law 2026, ch. 388July 14, 2021
Minimum coverageThe old financial responsibility chapter was repealed and the 25/50/25 limits moved
P.L. 2021, ch. 398 (S 0401) and ch. 399 repealed R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 31-31-4 through 31-31-21 — the security-after-accident regime that let the DMV demand a cash or bond deposit from drivers involved in a crash — along with §§ 31-47-8, 31-47-8.1 and 31-47-10. Section 31-31-7 had been the section everyone cited for Rhode Island's minimum liability limits, so the same act rewrote the cross-references in § 27-7-2.1 (uninsured motorist coverage) and § 31-34-4 (rental vehicles) to point instead at § 31-47-2(13)(i)(A) of the Motor Vehicle Reparations Act. The dollar figures did not change — 25/50/25, or $75,000 combined single limit — but any guide still citing § 31-31-7 is citing a repealed section, and the enforcement machinery it described is gone.
Rhode Island General Assembly — Public Law 2021, ch. 398July 15, 2019
Fault systemAn open and obvious danger no longer bars recovery
P.L. 2019, ch. 185 (H 5478 Substitute A) and ch. 256 amended R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-20-4 so that "the fact that the danger or defect was open and obvious" no longer bars a recovery; like ordinary contributory fault, it now only reduces damages in proportion to the claimant's share of the negligence. Rhode Island was already a pure comparative negligence state with no percentage cut-off, and this closed the doctrine that courts had used to dispose of claims before the comparison was ever made. By its own terms the amendment reaches only injuries or property damage occurring after the act passed on July 15, 2019.
Rhode Island General Assembly — Public Law 2019, ch. 185January 1, 2019
SR-22Rhode Island dropped the SR-22 out of its statutes
Until this date R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-47-12(c) let the DMV, a court or the traffic tribunal require proof of financial security "to be demonstrated by use of standard form SR 22." P.L. 2018, ch. 180 (H 8271 Substitute A) and ch. 201 struck those words, leaving only the list of documents a driver may present — a certificate of proof of financial responsibility, a bond, a certificate of deposit of money or securities, or a certificate of self insurance. The DMV's Financial Responsibility office now states flatly that "Financial Responsibility (SR-22) is no longer required by the State of Rhode Island"; the state's own filing is the GU-1338, canceled with an SR-26. The same act, effective the same day, added the § 31-47-12(f) penalty ladder for an operator caught without coverage in force: up to thirty days' suspension and a $100 to $250 fine on a first offense, $500 on a second, $1,000 on a third. Comparison sites and insurers that still sell "Rhode Island SR-22 insurance" are selling a form the state stopped naming in 2019.
Rhode Island General Assembly — Public Law 2018, ch. 180
What this list does and does not cover
Recorded here: changes to the rules this site tracks for Rhode Island — liability minimums, SR-22 and proof-of-insurance requirements, penalties for driving uninsured, the fault system, what a lapse costs, new-resident deadlines and crash reporting. Each entry names the session law or statute that made the change and the date it took effect, not the date it was signed.
Not recorded: rate filings, individual insurer decisions, court rulings that do not change the text of the law, and changes to rules outside those seven subjects. A short list does not mean a quiet legislature — it means little moved in the parts of Rhode Island law a driver has to comply with.
A change that has passed but has not yet taken effect is not shown as current anywhere on this site. It sits on the Rhode Island pages as a dated pending value and replaces the current figure on the morning it comes into force. You can see every pending change across the country at the top of the national change feed, and the sources behind the Rhode Island figures on its statute index.