Idaho Casualty Study Guide

Twenty of the seventy scored questions on Idaho’s Casualty exam are Idaho law, and they concentrate in two places: motor vehicles and workers’ compensation. Both areas contain a figure where Idaho departs from the states around it — one in the auto minimums, one in the workers’ compensation threshold — and a third where Idaho’s statute refuses to give you a number at all and expects you to work it out.

Auto — 25/50/15, and the third figure is the one to watch

Idaho’s minimum liability limits are 25/50/15: $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 for two or more in one accident, and $15,000 for injury to or destruction of property. The figures live in Idaho Code § 49-117(20) and are pulled into owners’ policies by § 49-1212(1)(b).

The bodily-injury half is unremarkable. The $15,000 property damage figure is the one to memorise, because several neighbouring states use $25,000 and a question offering “25/50/25” for Idaho is testing exactly that.

Idaho is a tort / at-fault state. There is no PIP and no no-fault system anywhere in Title 41 Chapter 25. Medical payments coverage is not mandated and is not even a required offer — § 41-2514 regulates it only if written, forbidding a claim window shorter than 3 years from the injury.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist — included, rejectable in writing

§ 41-2502 requires motor vehicle liability policies to include uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage at limits matching § 49-117 — but the named insured may reject it “in writing or in an electronic record.” Since 1 January 2009, insurers have also had to give disclosure statements explaining the coverage options prior to issuance or first renewal.

Note the contrast the exam likes: UM/UIM has a statute; medical payments does not. One coverage Idaho insists be offered and rejected on the record, the other it leaves entirely to the market.

Comparative negligence — Idaho gives you words, not a percentage

Idaho Code § 6-801 allows recovery where the claimant’s negligence “was not as great as” the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought, with damages reduced in proportion to the claimant’s share.

Work the phrase through. “Not as great as” means strictly less than. A claimant at 49% recovers 51% of their damages. A claimant at exactly 50% recovers nothing — their fault is as great as the defendant’s, not less. That is a 50% bar, and the statute never says so numerically.

One citation to keep straight: § 6-802 is not the rule. It is the special-verdict mechanic, directing the jury to find separate verdicts apportioning fault and the judge to reduce damages accordingly.

The residual market that isn’t an entity

Idaho has no formally named automobile insurance plan. Two statutes authorise one without creating anything: § 41-1441 (assigned risks) and Idaho Code § 49-1225, which directs the Director, “after consultation with insurance companies authorized to issue automobile liability policies in this state,” to approve reasonable plans “for the equitable apportionment among those companies of applicants for policies… who are in good faith entitled to but are unable to procure policies through ordinary methods.”

And a citation warning that circulates widely in Idaho study material: § 41-2510 is not the assigned-risk statute. It is titled “Exclusion and cancellation of designated individuals” and gives an insurer the right to exclude, cancel or refuse to renew coverage as to designated individuals — a named-driver exclusion provision, with the named insured’s signed acknowledgment. Different subject entirely.

Workers’ compensation — Idaho has no employee threshold

Most states set a headcount: three employees, five employees, below which coverage is optional. Idaho sets none. § 72-301 requires every employer to secure the payment of compensation, by one of three routes — insuring with an authorised insurer, insuring with the state insurance fund, or qualifying as an approved self-insurer with security deposited with the state treasurer. Public employers must generally use the state fund unless it declines the risk.

Relief comes not from a number but from the eleven excepted employments in § 72-212: household domestic service, casual employment, outworkers, certain family members, sole proprietors and working partners, corporate officers owning at least 10% of voting stock and serving as directors, federal employment, agricultural aircraft pilots on conditions, real estate agents paid solely by commission, volunteer ski patrollers, and officials of secondary-school athletic contests.

Benefits. Total disability pays 67% of the average weekly wage, subject to a maximum of 90% and a minimum of 45% of the average state wage (§§ 72-408, 72-409) — with a tighter rule in the first 52 weeks, where the benefit may not exceed 90% of the employee’s own average weekly wage and the floor is 15% of the state wage. For 2026, the average state wage is $1,135.00, making the maximum weekly total disability benefit $1,021.50.

Deadlines. Both live in § 72-701: notice to the employer “as soon as practicable but not later than sixty (60) days” after the accident, and a claim within one year of the accident. § 72-706 is a different clock — the limitation on applying for a hearing.