North Dakota Casualty Study Guide

North Dakota is a no-fault state, and that single fact reorganises the whole casualty syllabus. Basic benefits are compulsory. They are paid by your own insurer regardless of who caused the crash. And the right to sue the other driver for pain and suffering is gated behind a threshold that has five limbs, two of them numerical. Candidates trained on tort-state material usually get the structure right and the numbers wrong.

Compulsory, and the registration is the enforcement

NDCC ch. 26.1-41 is the Auto Accident Reparations chapter. 26.1-41-02(1): “The owner of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state… shall continuously provide… security for payment of basic no-fault benefits.”

Note continuously — this is not a requirement that attaches at an accident or a conviction, the way a financial-responsibility state works. It runs the whole time the vehicle is registered, and the enforcement mechanism is the registration itself: fail to maintain the security and the registration is revoked or suspended.

Basic no-fault benefits — one ceiling, three sublimits inside it

$30,000 per person per accident for economic loss. That is the ceiling, and the sublimits sit inside it rather than on top:

• work loss capped at $150 per week
• funeral, cremation and burial at $3,500
• replacement services at $15 per day

(NDCC 26.1-41-01(2); the replacement-services figure is at 26.1-41-01(18).)

The tort threshold — five limbs, two numbers

Suing for pain and suffering requires a serious injury. NDCC 26.1-41-01(21) defines it as:

• death
• dismemberment
• serious and permanent disfigurement
• disability beyond 60 days, or
• medical expenses exceeding $2,500

Any one of the five opens the door. The two numerical limbs are the tested pair, and they are the ones an item will give you: a claimant with $2,600 in bills has met the threshold, and so has one who was out of work for nine weeks.

When benefits become overdue

No-fault benefits are “overdue if not paid within 30 days after the… insurer receives reasonable proof of the fact and amount of loss,” and overdue amounts carry interest at the rate applicable to judgments (NDCC 26.1-41-09(2)).

Keep the direction straight: this duty runs from the insured’s own insurer to the insured. No-fault is first-party coverage, so the thirty days has nothing to do with the other driver’s carrier.

Liability limits, UM and UIM — and the anti-stacking rule

Minimum liability limits are 25/50/25 — and note where the section lives: NDCC 39-16.1-11(2)(b), in Title 39 (motor vehicles), not in the insurance title. A candidate searching Title 26.1 for the limits will not find them.

Uninsured motorist coverage is mandatory. “No motor vehicle liability insurance policy may be delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed in this state… unless uninsured motorist coverage is provided” (26.1-40-15.2). The insurer need not write it above the insured’s own bodily injury limits, or above $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident, whichever is less.

Underinsured motorist coverage is also mandatory, and tied to UM: “The insurer shall also provide underinsured motorist coverage at limits equal to the limits of uninsured motorist coverage” (26.1-40-15.3(1)). North Dakota is one of the states where UIM is compulsory rather than an offer the insured may decline.

And then the rule that surprises everyone: stacking is prohibited. “The limit of liability for uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage may not be added to or stacked upon limits for such coverages applying to other motor vehicles to determine the amount of coverage available to an insured in any one accident” (26.1-40-15.4(2)).

An insured with three vehicles on one policy does not get three times the UM limit. The state compels generous coverage and then caps how it can be assembled.

Cancellation, nonrenewal and SR-22

Personal auto cancellation takes 10 days’ notice for nonpayment and 20 days for any other permitted reason (26.1-40-03). Nonrenewal takes 30 days (26.1-40-05(1)). After a policy has been in effect 60 days — or immediately, if it is a renewal — cancellation is confined to the enumerated grounds at 26.1-40-02(1).

Contrast property, where other-cause cancellation is 30 days and nonrenewal is 45. Only the ten-day nonpayment figure is shared between the two chapters.

Proof of financial responsibility may be cancelled “at any time after one year from the date such proof was required,” absent an intervening conviction or bail forfeiture (NDCC 39-16.1-19). Two things follow: North Dakota’s baseline is one year, not the three years common elsewhere, and cancellation is request-driven — the obligation continues until the person asks.

Workers’ compensation — you cannot write it

North Dakota is a monopolistic state fund jurisdiction. Workers’ compensation is written exclusively by the state under NDCC Title 65; private carriers may not compete for it.

For a casualty producer this is not a detail, it is the shape of your job: a North Dakota employer buys workers’ compensation from the state, not from you. An exam item asking which carrier writes an employer’s workers’ compensation coverage here has exactly one answer.