Maine Casualty Study Guide

The most valuable thing on this paper is a habit: stop asking what the Maine auto insurer must offer and start asking what the policy must provide. Two coverages you are likely to have learned as optional are compulsory here.

50/100/25, or one number instead

29-A M.R.S. §1605(1) sets them out one at a time. “For damage to property, $25,000; For injury to or death of any one person, $50,000; For one accident resulting in injury to or death of more than one person, $100,000.”

A $125,000 combined single limit also satisfies the requirement — it replaces the split rather than adding to it.

Two coverages Maine compels

Medical payments is not an offer-and-reject coverage here. §1605-A says a motor vehicle liability policy “must provide coverage in an amount equal to or greater than $2,000 per person for medical costs … sustained in an accident involving the insured vehicle by the driver and passengers in that vehicle,” limited to costs incurred within one year of the injury. There is no rejection form, because there is nothing to reject.

§1605-B adds $500 per accident for towing and storage, and only where “the vehicle is towed at the request of a law enforcement officer.” A tow the driver arranged sits outside it.

Both mandates exclude policies covering more than 4 vehicles, and commercial risks — garages, dealerships, repair shops and public parking.

What Maine does to protect that med pay

Compelling the coverage is only half the design. 24-A M.R.S. §2910-A fences it: a casualty insurer may not subrogate against its own insured for medical services paid under med pay, absent written approval and Superintendent authorisation, and may not coordinate benefits against med pay or make it secondary to health insurance.

So a Maine injured driver may claim under med pay and under health cover, subject only to no duplicate recovery for the identical expense. An item that has the med pay carrier stepping into its insured’s shoes against a health plan is describing another state.

UM and UIM: read the default, not the option

§2902 carries both coverages in one statute, so a question hunting for “Maine’s UIM statute” is looking there.

Notice the direction it runs. It does not say the insurer must offer the coverage; it says coverage must be provided, in “the amount of coverage for liability for bodily injury or death in the policy offered or sold.” The default is UM and UIM at the policy’s own bodily injury limits. The insured’s only lever is an express written rejection of the matching amount, signed by the insured — which buys the coverage down, never out, and never below 50/100.

Liability attaches on the loss, and proof runs three years

Maine does not make a claimant wait for a judgment against the insured. §2903: liability “shall become absolute whenever such loss or damage … occurs.” §2904 gives a judgment creditor a direct route to the insurance.

29-A M.R.S. §1603(3) sets the proof clock: after a conviction or adjudication and reinstatement, the person “shall maintain proof of financial responsibility for at least 3 years.”

Workers’ compensation from the first employee, and a 50% bar

39-A M.R.S. §401 starts at one. “Every private employer, including an independent contractor who hires and pays employees, is subject to this Act and shall secure the payment of compensation.” No small-employer threshold, and the employer carries “the burden of proof to establish an exempt status.”

The exemptions are bought with alternative cover, so learn the figures in pairs. Seasonal or casual agricultural and aquacultural labourers are exempt where the employer carries employer’s liability of at least $25,000 with $5,000 medical. Other agricultural and aquacultural labourers are exempt where the employer carries $100,000 multiplied by the number of full-time-equivalent workers plus $5,000 medical, and either employs 6 or fewer concurrently or employs more whose total weekly hours do not exceed 240.

Maine built its own carrier for this line: MEMIC, the Maine Employers’ Mutual Insurance Company (24-A M.R.S. ch. 52, §§3701-3714).

14 M.R.S. §156 is modified comparative negligence with a 50% bar, so a claimant equally at fault recovers nothing. Below that line the jury reduces the damages “to such extent as the jury thinks just and equitable,” a dollar reduction rather than a percentage.