New Hampshire Casualty Study Guide

Everyone knows one thing about New Hampshire: it does not make drivers buy auto insurance. That one fact is responsible for most of the wrong answers in this part, because candidates stop there. The rule has a second half — New Hampshire does not compel the purchase, but it heavily specifies the policy once purchased, and some of those mandates go further than states that do compel it.

Financial responsibility, not compulsory insurance

New Hampshire runs RSA chapter 264, a financial responsibility scheme in which proof is triggered by events, not by registration. Nothing in the chapter conditions registering a vehicle on carrying insurance.

RSA 264:2 requires proof after conviction for enumerated offences: driving under the influence, failing to stop and report after an accident, homicide or assault arising out of driving, a second excessive-speed conviction, a second reckless-operation conviction. RSA 264:3 requires it after a reportable accident. RSA 264:7 suspends the licence and registration of a person with an unsatisfied judgment until it is satisfied and proof of financial responsibility is furnished — RSA 264:8 is the companion section fixing the amounts that count as satisfaction.

There is a fourth compulsory category candidates miss entirely: transportation network company drivers, whose coverage must satisfy the financial responsibility requirement “beginning with the first dollar of a claim” (RSA 359-U:10, I(b) — the old TNC chapter, RSA 376-A, was repealed effective July 1, 2023).

But if a policy issues, three mandates attach

Write a New Hampshire auto policy and the state loads it immediately:

• Liability: 25/50/25 — $25,000 bodily injury per person, $50,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage (RSA 264:20; RSA 259:61).
• Uninsured motorist, at limits equal to the liability limits actually elected. Buy higher liability and UM rises with it automatically (RSA 264:15).
• Medical payments of at least $1,000 per person — and this is the one that breaks people’s mental model of New Hampshire (RSA 264:16).

Medical payments — required, and the reasoning trap

RSA 264:16 is blunt: any motor vehicle liability policy “shall provide medical payments coverage therein or supplemental thereto in an amount equal to or greater than $1,000 per person for reasonable medical costs.” Costs must be incurred within 3 years of the injury.

Med pay is optional in most states. It is not optional here — and because the state is famous for compelling nothing, an answer choice reading “medical payments coverage is optional in New Hampshire” looks right to anyone reasoning from reputation rather than from the statute.

The fine print is tested too, and one part of it is routinely taught backwards. The coverage is not assignable to providers and a health carrier may not coordinate benefits against it. But the insured is not forced to choose: RSA 264:16 gives the insured the “exclusive right to submit a claim for medical expenses under either medical payments coverage or a health insurance policy or both, as the insured elects.” What the statute bars is duplicate payment for the same expense — not claiming under both. The exception reaches a commercial policy insuring more than 4 automobiles — one covering exactly four is still caught — along with garages, dealerships and repair shops.

UM and UIM are not the same question in New Hampshire

RSA 264:15 mandates coverage against uninsured vehicles and hit-and-run vehicles at limits equal to the liability limits elected. The named insured may reject it in writing, and the rejection is unusually sweeping: it “shall constitute a rejection of coverage by all insureds, shall apply to all vehicles then or thereafter eligible to be covered,” and survives amendment and renewal until the named insured asks for it back in writing.

What RSA 264:15 does not contain is the word underinsured. New Hampshire has no separate statutory UIM mandate. Underinsured protection reaches New Hampshire insureds through the Department-approved policy form’s definition of an uninsured motor vehicle, and the Department markets the pair as one “Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist” coverage.

Comparative fault and the residual market

New Hampshire is modified comparative with a 51% bar. RSA 507:7-d allows recovery “if such fault was not greater than the fault of the defendant, or the defendants in the aggregate,” with damages reduced in proportion. A claimant exactly 50% at fault still recovers, halved; at 51% the recovery is nothing. Note the aggregation across multiple defendants.

The auto residual market is the New Hampshire Automobile Reinsurance Facility, a mandatory risk-sharing plan created under the Commissioner’s RSA 404-C:1 authority and operated under rule Ins 1406. Cessions are barred after the 60th day following a new policy’s effective date. Be careful with the citation: RSA 404-C is titled Mandatory Risk Sharing Plans generally — it is not an “Automobile Insurance Plan” chapter.

Cancellation of private passenger auto freezes at 60 days (RSA 417-A:4), after which only three grounds survive: nonpayment, the insured’s own request, and the named insured not having been a New Hampshire resident when the policy issued or renewed. Contrast the 90-day freeze on the property side — that pair transposes more often than anything else on this exam.

Workers’ compensation — the two clocks

Coverage is mandatory from the first employee, full or part time, with no numeric threshold (RSA 281-A:5), and it is administered by the Department of Labor rather than the Insurance Department.

Temporary total disability pays 60% of the employee’s average weekly wage or 30% of the state average weekly wage, whichever is greater, capped at 150% of the state average. Nothing is paid for the first 3 days unless the disability lasts 14 days or longer, at which point those three days become payable retroactively.

Then the two deadlines candidates merge into one: notice of injury to the employer within 2 years, and the claim filed within 3 years of the date of injury (RSA 281-A:19; 281-A:21-a). Both are tolled where the employee did not know and could not reasonably have known the injury was work-related.