Delaware Casualty Study Guide

Casualty carries the heaviest Delaware-specific load of any major line here — 45 scored questions in a separately scored state portion. Two bodies of law account for most of them, and Delaware is an outlier in both: an auto regime that bolts mandatory no-fault benefits onto a tort system, and a workers’ compensation scheme with no employee threshold at all.

Auto — a tort state that makes PIP mandatory anyway

Delaware is fault-based (tort). It is also an “add-on” state: it mandates Personal Injury Protection on top of the tort system (21 Del. C. § 2118). Both things are true at once, and the reasoning “tort state, therefore no PIP” is exactly the trap.

The mandatory liability minimums are 25/50/10 — and that $10,000 property damage figure is genuinely low. Most states have moved to $15,000 or $25,000, so a candidate reciting limits learned next door will get it wrong.

PIP minimums, payable regardless of fault: $15,000 per person / $30,000 per accident, plus a $5,000 funeral benefit. PIP covers the insured’s medical expenses and lost earnings.

Uninsured motorist coverage is mandatory unless rejected in writing, provided at the financial-responsibility limits — and note the detail that UM property damage carries a $250 deductible (18 Del. C. § 3902). Underinsured motorist is offered alongside UM up to $100,000 / $300,000, rejectable in writing.

The 51% bar — and why “not greater than” matters

Delaware applies modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar (10 Del. C. § 8132). A claimant recovers only if their negligence was not greater than the defendant’s, with damages reduced by their share.

Read the phrase carefully, because it decides the borderline case. At exactly 50/50, the Delaware claimant still recovers — their negligence is equal to, not greater than, the defendant’s. Some states bar recovery at exactly 50%. Delaware does not.

Workers’ compensation — no threshold at all

Delaware’s workers’ compensation is mandatory and the exclusive remedy against the employer (19 Del. C. § 2304). And it has no employee-count threshold: essentially every employer with an employee is covered, with narrow exceptions for casual and domestic workers, farm labourers, and electing sole proprietors, partners and officers.

That absence is the memorable fact. Many states start at three, four or five employees. Delaware starts at one, and a small commercial client who assumes otherwise is uninsured.

The rest runs as a chain of deadlines:

• Temporary total disability — 66⅔% of the average weekly wage, capped at 66⅔% of the statewide average weekly wage (§ 2324)
• Notice to the employer — within 90 days
• Claim filed — within 2 years of the accident
• Occupational disease — 1 year from knowledge
• Reopening — within 5 years of the last payment (§§ 2341, 2361)

An employer may comply by insuring with a licensed carrier or by qualifying as an approved self-insurer (§ 2372). Claims are adjudicated by the Industrial Accident Board, with the Office of Workers’ Compensation inside the Department of Labor administering the system.

The residual auto market

Drivers the voluntary market will not take are placed through the Delaware Automobile Insurance Plan — the state’s assigned-risk mechanism.