Utah Casualty Study Guide

Two systems carry the Utah-specific weight on the casualty exam: auto and workers’ compensation. Auto is where Utah is hybrid — a no-fault state that lets you into tort above a threshold — and comp is where Utah is absolute — one employee, no exemption, but with two separate deadlines that catch candidates who memorize only one. Hold those two shapes and the numbers attach to them.

One structural note before either: §31A-23a-106 defines Utah’s casualty line as “casualty (including surety bonds).” Bonds are inside this license, not alongside it, so bid, performance and license-and-permit bonds are fair casualty exam material here.

Auto — modified no-fault, and limits that moved in 2025

Utah is a modified no-fault state. Personal Injury Protection is mandatory — a minimum of $3,000 per person for medical expenses, plus statutory amounts for lost wages, funeral and survivor benefits — and it pays your own costs regardless of who caused the crash. You may pursue the at-fault driver in tort only after crossing Utah’s threshold: at least $3,000 in medical expenses, or a serious injury such as permanent disability or disfigurement, dismemberment, or death.

The minimum liability limits changed recently, and both sets are still testable:

• Policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2025: 30/65/25 — $30,000 bodily injury per person, $65,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage — or a single combined limit of $90,000.
• Policies issued or renewed before that: 25/65/15, or an $80,000 single limit.

Notice which number never moved. The $65,000 middle figure is identical in both sets, which makes the pair unusually easy to half-remember. Self-insured private rental fleets keep the older figures.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage must be offered at limits up to the policy’s liability limits, and the named insured may reject them in writing. For drivers the voluntary market won’t take, Utah runs the Utah Automobile Insurance Plan, its assigned-risk mechanism — administered through the Western Association of Automobile Insurance Plans and serviced by AIPSO.

Fault — compare to the combined, not to fifty

Utah applies modified comparative negligence, and the bar is worded more carefully than the version taught nationally. Under §78B-5-818, a claimant recovers only if their fault is less than the combined fault of the defendants — and of any immune persons and allocated nonparties besides. A claimant 50% or more at fault recovers nothing, and any recovery is reduced by the claimant’s own share.

Two words are doing the work. Combined: in a two-car case the rule collapses to the familiar 50% bar, but in a multi-party case it does not — a claimant 40% at fault against two defendants at 35% and 25% compares 40 against 60, and recovers. And the comparison set is broader than the people you sued, reaching immune parties and nonparties the jury allocates fault to. Fact patterns with more than one responsible party are where this earns its place on the exam.

Workers’ compensation — one employee, two clocks

Utah requires workers’ compensation of any employer that “regularly employs one or more workers” under a contract of hire, part-time workers and minors included. There is no numeric small-employer exemption — the carve-outs are situational rather than headcount-based: a domestic employer of someone working under 40 hours a week, and agricultural employers with an annual payroll under $8,000. The Utah Labor Commission, through its Division of Industrial Accidents, administers the system under Title 34A.

Employers comply by insuring with a private carrier — including WCF Insurance, Utah’s competitive quasi-public carrier — or by qualifying as an approved self-insurer. Utah has no monopolistic state fund.

The benefit math. Temporary total disability pays 66-2/3% of the employee’s average weekly wage at the time of injury, plus $20 for a dependent spouse and $20 for each dependent child under 18, up to four children. Those flat dependent allowances are a Utah addition national material omits. The weekly benefit is capped at 100% of the state average weekly wage and floored at $45 per week, and TTD runs to a maximum of 312 weeks, an entitlement that must be used within 12 years of the injury.

The two deadlines. This is the trap, and it is a clean one, because the numbers live in different statutes:

• Notify the employer or the division within 180 days after the injury — §34A-2-407(3)(b). Miss it and the claim is barred.
• File an application for hearing with the Division of Adjudication within 6 years of the date of the accident — §34A-2-417(2) — and meet your burden of proof by 12 years.

Separate clocks for separate acts. A candidate who has memorized “the workers’ comp deadline” as a single number will pick whichever one appears and be right about half the time.

Where casualty meets the guaranty fund

One cross-reference worth carrying out of this chapter. When a casualty insurer becomes insolvent, the Utah Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association covers only that portion of each covered claim less than $300,000 — with no per-claim deductible — but it pays workers’ compensation claims in full, expressly exempt from that cap. Comp is the one line Utah refuses to cap on insolvency, which tells you something about how the legislature ranks it.