Nevada Property Study Guide

Most states answer the hard property questions out of a form the legislature wrote. Nevada wrote no such form, and no valued policy law with it, so coverage and the worth of a total loss run back to the contract — policed by a general filing rule and by claim regulations that change their unit of time mid-scheme.

The fire form Nevada never wrote

There is no 165-line standard fire policy here: NRS chapter 691A, the property insurance chapter, holds five sections and none prescribes wording. NRS 687B.140 looks like the answer and is not: a referral rule pointing back to whatever the Code requires for that kind of insurance, and for fire it requires no form. The control is general: NRS 687B.120, form filing and approval, so fire wording here is whatever an insurer filed and the Commissioner did not disapprove. The phrase surfaces once in Nevada law, at NAC 691C.030(1)(b), glossing a term for credit insurance.

The offer mistaken for a valued policy law

No statute makes a Nevada insurer pay the face amount on a total loss by fire; settlement follows the policy’s own valuation clause. NRS 691A.020 is the section candidates reach for, and it is narrower in every direction: certain manufactured or mobile homes, an offer rather than a payment, and replacement value — “the amount needed to repair, replace or rebuild,” without depreciation — rather than the declared sum.

Wildfire, and what an unprescribed form permits

NRS 691A.035, added by A.B. 376 (2025), does two things at once: an insurer “may exclude the peril of wildfire from the coverage provided under the policy,” and may “issue a policy of property insurance that solely covers the peril of wildfire.” Section 27(3) of the act set it running 1 January 2026 for all purposes but rulemaking. A state with a prescribed form would have had to amend it; Nevada only had to say the insurer may.

No FAIR plan, and a residual power that is general

There is no coastal-style FAIR plan here: only a general residual power at NRS 686B.180, exercisable after a hearing, and the Nevada Essential Insurance Association at NRS 686B.210. The tested detail is 686B.180(3): participation in a plan the Commissioner orders is compulsory, binding the agents licensed to represent the insurers as well as the insurers. Hard-to-place property otherwise goes to surplus lines, not a pool.

Two units, and nothing defined

An insurer acknowledges a claim within 20 working days (NAC 686A.665(1)) and begins investigating within 20 working days, saying then what forms it will require (NAC 686A.670(1)). NAC 686A.670(2) then requires the investigation completed within 30 days — plain days, the unit having quietly changed — unless it reasonably cannot be. After proofs of loss, NAC 686A.675(1) allows 30 working days to advise acceptance or denial, and 686A.675(3) puts both units in one subsection: notice inside those 30 working days, then further notice 30 days later and every 30 thereafter.

“Days” is defined nowhere in NAC chapter 686A. Alongside it, NRS 690B.012 runs a plain-days scheme: approve or deny within 30, pay within 30 of approval, notify within 20 if more is needed, with interest at the NRS 99.040 rate.

The surplus lines valve, and where its numbers hide

NRS 685A.120 gates the licence with a waiting period, not a credential: licensed by Nevada for general lines for at least 6 months, or a surplus lines licence elsewhere, plus an examination. Diligent effort is qualitative: NRS 685A.040 asks only that the insurance not be procurable from an authorized insurer “after diligent effort has been made to do so.” No declination count appears anywhere. The proof is the report filed within 90 days under NRS 685A.050, which stays in the broker’s office, “must not be removed,” and is open to examination for 5 years.

Two numbers hide. NRS 685A.180 taxes the broker quarterly at the rate imposed on similar coverages written by authorized insurers, and that cross-reference lands on the 3.5 percent at NRS 680B.027(1); chapter 685A prints no rate at all. The stamping question runs the other way: NRS 685A.075 makes association membership a condition of continued licensure and authorizes a Commissioner-approved filing fee, then fixes no amount, so any stamping rate sourced to statute is invented. NRS 685A.155 does print a ceiling: the first broker’s fee and any other charges payable to that broker must not exceed 20 percent of the premium paid by the insured.