Enactment of no pay, no play law has only a modest effect on thepercentage of uninsured motorists within a state, says a study fromthe Insurance Research Council.

The Malvern, Pa.-based research group says it has developed astatistical model that estimates that the uninsured motorist ratecan fall by as much as 1.6 percent after a state adopts a no pay,no play law.

The law prohibits uninsured drivers from collectingcertain damages from negligent insured drivers, says theInternational Risk Management Institute. Typically, the uninsuredcannot collect noneconomic damages and they are required to pay alarge deductible before they can sue for property damage.

IRC says that at the present time ten states have no pay, noplay laws on the books: Alaska, California, Iowa, Kansas,Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma andOregon.

For states without a no pay, no play law in effect, IRC says itdeveloped a mathematical model to estimate the compensation fornoneconomic loss paid to uninsured third-party liability claimantsin a given year.

Across all of the 39 states studied using 2007 data, the averagenoneconomic loss paid to uninsured claimants per state was $17.5million. These findings suggest the average insured driver in 2007paid an additional $4.69 ($5.10 in 2012 dollars) to address theaverage $17.5 million in noneconomic loss ($19.3 million on averagein 2012 dollars) that was awarded to uninsured claimants in eachstate.

"The original intent of these laws was to relieve at-faultdrivers who comply with state insurance requirements from having tocompensate uninsured drivers for noneconomic damages. Yet, littleresearch had been conducted analyzing the effect of no pay, no playlaws on the overall insurance market," said Elizabeth Sprinkel,senior vice president of IRC. "With this study, we now have moreinformation on how these laws affect the population of motoristsdriving uninsured. This report, which also develops cost estimatesfor states that do not have no pay, no play laws on the books,highlights the benefits a strict law may provide to the averageinsured consumer."

Copies of the study are available through the IRC'swebsite for $300 for an electronic version or $400 for aprinted copy.