New Mexico Casualty Study Guide

Two systems carry the New Mexico weight on the casualty exam: auto liability and workers’ compensation. Auto is where New Mexico looks conventional and then breaks the pattern in one place that matters enormously. Comp is where the headline number has an exception attached to it. Learn both as rule-plus-exception and the details hold.

Auto — a tort state with modest limits

New Mexico is fault-based (tort). There is no PIP requirement — this is not a no-fault state — and medical payments coverage is optional. Minimum liability limits under the Mandatory Financial Responsibility Act are 25/50/10: $25,000 bodily injury per person, $50,000 per occurrence, $10,000 property damage (§66-5-215).

That $10,000 property-damage figure is the distinguishing digit in this set, and it is the one to fix in memory: the bodily-injury numbers follow a common pattern, while the property-damage limit is where New Mexico’s answer choices separate from each other.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage must be made available. §66-5-301 requires it “in minimum limits… as set forth in Section 66-5-215” and such higher limits as may be desired by the insured. The insured may reject it, and 13.12.3.9 NMAC requires the rejection to be endorsed on, attached to, stamped on or otherwise made part of the policy. UM and UIM travel together here rather than being separately elected. For drivers the voluntary market will not take, the New Mexico Automobile Insurance Plan is the AIPSO-administered assigned-risk residual market.

Fault — the most forgiving rule in the book, and it comes from a case

New Mexico applies pure comparative negligence: recovery is reduced by the claimant’s share of fault with no percentage bar at all. A claimant 99% at fault still recovers the remaining 1%.

What makes this one worth extra attention is its source. It comes from Scott v. Rizzo, 96 N.M. 682 (1981) — a decision of the New Mexico Supreme Court, not a section of Chapter 59A. Candidates hunting for a statute cite sometimes talk themselves out of the right answer for exactly that reason.

Workers’ compensation — three workers, unless you build things

New Mexico requires workers’ compensation for employers with three or more workers (§52-1-2). Then comes the exception that carries the exam question: construction businesses must carry it at ANY number of workers, including one. Certain agricultural, domestic and real-estate-licensee workers are excepted from the count.

The system is administered by the New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Administration (WCA) (§52-5) — a standalone agency, not a division inside a department of labour. Employers comply by buying commercial coverage, qualifying as an approved self-insurer, or joining a group self-insurance programme (§52-1-4).

Benefits run at two-thirds (66⅔%) of the worker’s average weekly wage, capped at the state maximum (§52-1-41). The waiting rule sits in a different section and is the detail most often missed: under §52-1-40 no compensation is allowed for a disability lasting seven days or less, but if the disability lasts more than four weeks from the date of injury, benefits are allowed from the date of disability.

One note on how the exam is weighted

PSI’s published content outline for the New Mexico Casualty exam (Series 18-29) allocates just 3 of 100 items to Workers’ Compensation Laws. Casualty Insurance Basics carries 28, the Personal Automobile Policy 15, General Insurance Concepts 14, and Commercial General Liability 12. Learn the comp facts above — they are cheap and they are certain — but budget your study time to match the weighting, not the interest.