Wyoming Adjuster Insurance Exam 2026

One License, Three Lines — and No Adjuster Chapter

The Wyoming Department of Insurance issues a single adjuster license, and § 26-9-219(a) names the three lines you may qualify for: property insurance (as defined in § 26-5-104), casualty insurance (§ 26-5-106), and crop insurance (§ 26-9-202(a)(xxi)). The Department confirms it: *"The available designations are: 'Property,' 'Casualty,' and 'Crop'."*

There is no workers' compensation adjuster line — and the reason is worth getting right, because the common explanation does not survive reading the statute. § 26-9-219(a) is simply a closed enumeration of three. Wyoming's casualty definition at § 26-5-106(a)(iii) expressly *includes* *"insurance of the obligations accepted by, imposed upon or assumed by employers under law for death, disablement or injury of employees"* — so workers' compensation risk is not carved out of the casualty line. There is no separate WC designation for the same reason there is no separate designation for any other casualty sub-line.

⚠️ There is no adjuster chapter either. Chapter 9 is captioned *"Agencies and Adjusters,"* but Article 1 is entirely defunct — every section is repealed or renumbered — and Article 2 is captioned "Insurance Producers." Its own scope section, § 26-9-201, says the chapter *"governs the qualifications and procedures for the licensing of insurance producers."*

Adjusters are grafted into that producer chapter by exactly two hooks: § 26-9-219, which creates the license, and § 26-9-231(a), which names adjusters expressly in the continuing education requirement. That matters more than it sounds — several producer-only provisions in the same chapter are routinely misread onto adjusters, and the records rule is the worst of them.

The definition — § 26-1-102(a)(i), repeated verbatim at § 26-9-202(a)(xxv): an adjuster is one who *"either investigates and negotiates settlements relative to insurance claims or applies the factual circumstances of an insurance claim to the insurance policy provisions, or both, arising under property and casualty insurance contracts."* Attorneys licensed in Wyoming, and agents or brokers adjusting losses under policies they placed, are outside that definition — but note the carve-out is expressly *"for the purposes of chapter 9,"* which is licensing only.

Salaried Insurer Employees Are Not Exempt — They Need the License

This is the single biggest inversion in Wyoming, and it catches experienced adjusters moving in from other states.

There is no staff-adjuster exemption anywhere in Wyoming's adjuster provisions. Not in § 26-1-102(a)(i), not in § 26-9-202(a)(xxv), and not in § 26-9-219. The definition excludes attorneys and placing agents, and stops there.

To the contrary, the statute contemplates salaried licensees. § 26-9-219(b)(iii) lists, as one way of satisfying the experience qualification, being *"a full-time salaried employee of a licensed adjuster."* The architecture assumes salaried people hold licenses.

⚠️ The trap is § 26-9-204. It is captioned *"Exceptions to Licensing"* and its subsection (b)(i) exempts insurance-company personnel *"engaged in the ... handling of claims."* That reads like a staff-adjuster exemption and it is not one. § 26-9-204(a) opens: *"Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require an insurer to obtain an insurance producer license."* The whole section is about the insurance producer license.

§ 26-9-204 does not exempt anyone from § 26-9-219. Do not cite it as an adjuster exemption.

Three narrow exclusions from the license requirement do exist, and they are in § 26-9-219 itself. Losses *"of an unusual, uncommon or unique nature requiring special expertise or knowledge not readily available among adjusters licensed in this state"*; *"the adjustment of a series of losses resulting from a catastrophe common to those losses"*; and, under § 26-9-219(f), portable electronic device claim staff — collecting or furnishing claim information and doing data entry, supervised by a licensed adjuster who *"shall not supervise more than twenty-five (25) persons."*

Licensed as Consultants — and Regulated Barely at All

The phrase "public adjuster" appears nowhere in Wyoming Statutes Title 26. Wyoming has not enacted the NAIC Public Adjuster Licensing Model Act.

The route runs through the insurance CONSULTANT license, and the hook is a regulation rather than the statute. Rule ch. 18 § 18-2(a)(i) provides that *"Consultants as defined in this section shall include: (A) A public adjustor or (B) Any other person who, for compensation ... on behalf of the insured investigates and negotiates settlement of claims arising under insurance contracts."* Note the spelling — the regulation says *adjustor*.

§ 26-9-220, the consultant statute, never mentions public adjusters at all. What it does provide: a license is required to be *"held out to the public as an insurance consultant for hire"*; the exam must be passed within 1 year before application; fingerprints and a criminal history record check are required at the applicant's cost; *"No license is valid for longer than twenty-four (24) months"*; and § 26-9-220(f) bars dual capacity — you may not act as both producer and consultant in the same transaction.

The exam is a different exam, and it is much longer. Exam code 47, Property and Casualty Consultant: 150 questions, 2.5 hours, $96. The adjuster exam is 100 questions in 2 hours. Any material that lets those figures bleed together is wrong.

⚠️ Wyoming imposes none of the five standard public-adjuster consumer protections. No bond. No fee cap. No written-contract requirement. No rescission right. No solicitation moratorium after a loss. That negative was established by enumerating every source that could have carried them — § 26-9-220(a) through (f), § 26-9-219(a) through (g), the two fee lines in § 26-4-101, and all nine sections of Rule ch. 18.

Public adjuster applications are mailed on paper with a check — they do not go through Sircon.

Seven Requirements, and One of Them Is an Office

§ 26-9-219(b) is an exhaustive seven-item list. You must be an adult; be a Wyoming resident or a resident of a state that permits Wyoming residents to adjust there; satisfy one of three experience routes; be trustworthy and of good reputation; maintain an office and records; pass the written examination within one year of application; and submit fingerprints and a criminal history record check if you are a resident, at your own cost.

The experience requirement has three alternative routes, and only one involves employment. § 26-9-219(b)(iii): a full-time salaried employee of a licensed adjuster, or a law-school graduate, or someone with *"experience or special education or training in the handling of loss claims ... of sufficient duration and extent to make him competent."*

There is no prelicensing course. The Department's line that *"the Wyoming Department of Insurance does not endorse any providers for pre-licensing education"* is a disclaimer attached to a courtesy list of study vendors — it is not evidence of a requirement.

⚠️ The office requirement is real, and adjusters get a stricter version of it than consultants do. § 26-9-219(b)(v) requires you to *"have and maintain an office accessible to the public and keep therein the usual and customary records in paper, electronic or other appropriate format, pertaining to transactions under the license."* Consultants get an express home-office proviso in Rule ch. 18 — *"this provision does not prohibit maintenance of the office in the licensee's home."* § 26-9-219(b)(v) contains no equivalent.

Residency is conditional rather than absolute. § 26-9-219(b)(ii) accepts a resident of any state that reciprocally permits Wyoming residents to adjust there — and the Designated Home State route at § 26-9-219(d) opens a further path.

There is no bond and no appointment requirement. § 26-9-213, the only appointment section, says *"insurance producer"* in every operative clause and makes the fee payable by the insurer.

Three Exams, One Fee — and No Content Outline

Pearson VUE administers all three. From the Wyoming candidate handbook:

Property and Casualty Adjuster, exam code 17 — 100 questions, 2 hours, $96. Crop Adjuster, exam code 31 — 60 questions, 1 hour, $96. Property and Casualty Consultant, exam code 47 — 150 questions, 2.5 hours, $96 — that is the public adjuster exam.

Retakes: *"Candidates must wait twenty-four (24) hours before making a reservation."* And a warning on combination formats: *"If part of a combination exam is failed the entire combination exam must be taken again."*

⚠️ There is no adjuster content outline, and that has a consequence. Pearson's *Wyoming Insurance Content Outlines* (#125101) runs 26 pages and covers Life, Accident and Health, Property, Casualty, Property and Casualty, and the Consultant lines — but contains no Property and Casualty Adjuster outline and no Crop Adjuster outline. The only mention of the word is a front-matter note reading *"PC Adjuster updates July 31, 2025"* that is not backed by any outline in the document.

So the scored-versus-pretest split for exams 17 and 31 is unpublished, and whether the 100 and 60 include pretest items is unknown. We are not going to guess at it. What is published is the total, and that is what you should plan around.

The crop exam has a claimed waiver worth flagging. The Department says crop adjusters holding current Crop Adjuster Proficiency (CAP) certification may bypass the exam. § 26-9-219(b)(vi) authorizes waiver only for a nonresident licensed and in good standing in a reciprocating home state — no statutory hook for a CAP-based waiver was located. Treat it as an agency practice and confirm it before relying on it.

70% Raw — But You Will Never See a Number

Wyoming's standard is a raw percent-correct, and the handbook says so in terms: *"You need to answer 70% of questions correctly in order to pass the examination."*

The words "scaled," "scale score" and "raw score" do not appear anywhere in the Wyoming handbook. There is no conversion, no equating table, and nothing standing between the questions you answered correctly and the standard you must meet.

But here is the part candidates are not expecting: *"When candidates complete the examination, they will receive a score report marked 'pass' or 'fail'."*

So the standard is a raw percentage and the report is binary. Seventy of the hundred on exam 17. Forty-two of the sixty on exam 31. And whichever way it goes, you will not be told your score — not on a pass, and not on a fail.

That changes how you should prepare, in one specific way. In a state that reports a number, a near miss tells you how near. Wyoming tells you nothing. You cannot calibrate a retake against your last attempt, so there is no substitute for going in with real margin — and the practice exams you take beforehand are the only numeric feedback you will ever get.

Your Birth Month, a Doubling Penalty, and CE That Names You

§ 26-9-207(b): the license continues if, on or before the last day of the month of your birthday in the second year following issuance or renewal, you pay the continuation fee, meet the CE requirement, and file a written continuation request.

⚠️ § 26-9-207(c) — the late penalty is 100% of the fee. *"A licensee who allows his license to lapse may, within twelve (12) months from the due date of the continuation fee, reinstate the same license without the necessity of passing a written examination. However, a penalty equal to the amount of the continuation fee shall be required in addition to the continuation fee."* Resident: $100 plus $100 equals $200. Nonresident: $150 plus $150 equals $300. Past twelve months, reinstatement without re-examination is gone.

Those doubled figures are statute-derived. The Department does not publish them on the adjuster page — you have to read § 26-9-207(c) against the fee schedule to find them.

§ 26-9-207(f): report a change of name, address, telephone number, email address or other contact information within 30 days.

Continuing education is 24 hours per two-year period including at least 3 hours of ethics — and § 26-9-231(a) names adjusters expressly, which is unusual. The subsection reaches *"Resident insurance producers, title agents ..., adjusters, nonresident adjusters not exempted under subsection (f), and other resident persons required to be licensed under this chapter."* Rule ch. 20 has no scope section; the work is done by the § 20-2(g) definition of *"Licensee,"* which likewise names *"adjusters, and designated Wyoming home state non-resident adjusters."*

§ 26-9-231(f) governs nonresidents both ways: *"A nonresident adjuster having met the continuing education requirements in his home state is exempt. A nonresident adjuster not licensed in his home state is subject to the requirements of this section."*

No Retention Period — and the Three-Year Rule Is Not Yours

§ 26-9-219(b)(v) requires you to keep *"the usual and customary records"* at your public office — and sets no retention term at all.

⚠️ The three-year rule people cite is § 26-9-228(c), and it binds producers: *"The insurance producer shall keep the record available for inspection for a period of at least three (3) years after completion of the transactions."* § 26-9-228(a) likewise opens *"Each resident insurance producer,"* and § 26-9-228(b) is repealed.

Do not tell a Wyoming adjuster they owe a three-year retention duty. The accurate statement is that you must keep the usual and customary records at your office, in any format, with no statutory retention period — and that your carrier's contract or another state's license may well impose one anyway.

Reporting — § 26-9-216, thirty days both ways. An administrative action in another jurisdiction must be reported *"within thirty (30) days of the final disposition"*; a criminal prosecution in any jurisdiction *"within thirty (30) days of the initial pretrial hearing date."*

The section has a drafting mismatch worth knowing rather than resolving. Both subsections make the duty-bearer *"a licensee"* while describing the object as *"the producer."* The duty-bearer language is what reaches you.

Discipline — § 26-9-211 covers denial, nonrenewal and revocation. The money is elsewhere, in § 26-1-107, and it has a tier written specifically for you.

Seventeen Acts, a Frequency Element, and Not One Deadline

§ 26-13-124 has one subsection. There is no (b), (c) or (d). The chapeau, verbatim: *"(a) A person is considered to be engaging in an unfair method of competition and unfair and deceptive act or practice in the business of insurance if that person commits or performs with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice any of the following unfair claims settlement practices."*

Seventeen acts follow. The ones an adjuster meets daily: failing to acknowledge and act reasonably promptly on communications; failing to adopt reasonable standards for prompt investigation; refusing to pay without a reasonable investigation; failing to affirm or deny coverage within a reasonable time after proof of loss statements are completed; not attempting in good faith to effectuate prompt, fair and equitable settlements where liability is reasonably clear; compelling insureds to litigate by offering substantially less than amounts ultimately recovered; and failing to promptly provide a reasonable explanation of the basis for a denial or a compromise offer.

⚠️ There are zero numeric deadlines in the entire section. Every temporal reference is a reasonableness standard — *reasonably promptly*, *prompt investigation*, *within a reasonable time*, *prompt, fair and equitable*. Wyoming has adopted no NAIC-style claims-handling regulation to supply numbers, so compliance is a judgment call assessed after the fact, on your file.

⚠️ The frequency element has no single-act escape hatch. Wyoming tracks the NAIC chapeau verbatim and does not bolt on the *"single act committed in flagrant or conscious disregard"* alternative that many states add. There is exactly one qualifying clause.

The chapeau is grammatically ambiguous between *"commits [with such frequency] or performs with such frequency"* and *"commits"* standing alone — and no Wyoming Supreme Court construction of it was located. That is genuinely unresolved, and we are not going to assert a single-act theory without a case.

A private right of action: the statute is SILENT. Chapter 13 Article 1 was enumerated section by section and contains no civil-remedy provision, no express private action and no express bar. Enforcement is administrative — § 26-13-115 desist orders, with § 26-13-115(d) providing that no order *"in any way relieves or absolves any person affected by the order from any other liability."* The no-private-action result in Wyoming is judicial rather than statutory — and that distinction matters, because a judicial rule can move.

45 Days — With Two Different Triggers and No Penalty

§ 26-15-124 is captioned *"Claim to be accepted or rejected; attorney's fee"* and has three subsections. There is no (d).

(a) — life, accident and health: claims *"shall be rejected or accepted and paid ... within forty-five (45) days after receipt of the proofs of loss and supporting evidence,"* with exceptions where an accident and health claim is referred to the Wyoming state medical peer review committee, and as authorized by § 26-16-112(a).

(b) — property and casualty: claims *"shall be rejected or accepted and paid ... within forty-five (45) days after receipt of the claim and supporting bills."*

⚠️ Read those two triggers against each other, because the P&C one is earlier and lower. Subsection (a) runs from *"the proofs of loss and supporting evidence."* Subsection (b) has no proof-of-loss precondition at all — it runs from receipt of the CLAIM. An adjuster who diaries 45 days from a completed proof of loss on a property or casualty file has diaried the wrong date. And (b) carries no exception clauses whatever — the peer-review and § 26-16-112(a) carve-outs live only in (a).

(c) is the remedy, and it is not keyed to the deadline. Where *"the company refuses to pay the full amount of a loss covered by the policy and that the refusal is unreasonable or without cause,"* a court rendering judgment for a claimant *"may also award a reasonable sum as an attorney's fee and interest at ten percent (10%) per year."* Note the standard is disjunctive — unreasonable *or* without cause — and that (c) reaches *"any type or kind of insurance,"* including the duty-to-defend posture.

⚠️ Missing the 45 days does not, by itself, trigger anything. § 26-15-124 attaches no self-executing penalty and no interest to a bare deadline miss. The fee-and-interest remedy attaches to an unreasonable refusal to pay. Blowing the deadline is evidence, not a violation with its own price tag.

Wyoming Recognizes the Tort — and There Is No Cap

*McCullough v. Golden Rule Insurance Co.*, 1990 WY 35, 789 P.2d 855, on certified questions from the Tenth Circuit: *"we believe the superior view recognizes the existence of the independent tort for violation of a duty of good faith and fair dealing in insurance policy application by the carrier to its insured."*

The test is objective: *"the appropriate test to determine bad faith is the objective standard whether the validity of the denied claim was not fairly debatable ... if a realistic question of liability does exist, the insurance carrier is entitled to reasonably pursue that debate without exposure."*

The elements, as the Court restated them in *Bergantino* (2021) and *Peterson* (2022): *"(1) the absence of any reasonable basis for denying a claim for benefits; and (2) the insurer's knowledge or reckless disregard of the lack of a reasonable basis for denying the claim."*

⚠️ And you can lose even when the denial was fairly debatable. *Hatch v. State Farm*, 842 P.2d 1089 (Wyo. 1992), holds an insurer liable for how it handled the file regardless — an insurer *"cannot properly go beyond a reasonable denial of the claim and engage in unreasonable or unfair behavior to gain an unfair advantage."* The conduct catalogued there was investigative: unreasonable inventory demands, unsupervised home searches, refusing access to investigative reports, demanding extensive medical and personal records, threatening cancellation. How you handle the claim is separately actionable from whether you were right to deny it.

Third-party duty to settle exists too. *Gainsco Ins. Co. v. Amoco Prod. Co.*, 2002 WY 122: a third-party bad faith action lies where a liability insurer *"fails in bad faith to settle a third-party claim within policy limits,"* judged by *"whether a prudent insurer would have accepted the settlement offer if it alone were to be liable for the entire judgment."* It requires an excess judgment, and it is the insured's claim — assignable, but never the claimant's own.

⚠️ Punitive damages carry no ceiling. *McCullough* requires *"wanton or willful misconduct"* and *"an evil intent deserving of punishment,"* and Wyo. Const. art. 10, § 4(a) forecloses any legislative fix: *"No law shall be enacted limiting the amount of damages to be recovered for causing the injury or death of any person."*

The Roof Regulation Was Rewritten on 31 July 2025

Wyoming has a dedicated regulation on adjusting dwelling roof damage — Rule ch. 26 — and it was substantially amended effective 31 July 2025. Most published material, and several free legal databases, still carry the superseded text.

The word "slope" is gone. The rule now turns on a defined term: § 26-2(b) — *"'Facet' means one continuous side of a roof that has many sides."*

§ 26-3(a) is entirely new and has no predecessor: *"If an insured loss causes damage to all facets of the roof of a covered property, the entire roof shall be replaced."* Obsolescence is irrelevant to this one — it triggers on extent of damage alone.

§ 26-3(b) carries forward the deeming rule, rewritten: unless the insured consents in advance, *"if the roofing product ... is obsolete and there is partial damage, i.e., damage to one or more facets of the roof but not the entire roof, it shall be construed that the full roof has been damaged and adjustment shall be made on that basis."* And "obsolete" is now defined as a product *"no longer manufactured or available for use, AND for which there is no roofing product of similar like, kind and quality currently available"* — a two-prong test.

⚠️ § 26-3(c)(i): photographs alone are not enough. *"[P]hotographic documentation of the roofing product in and of itself is insufficient to meet the requirement of a reasonable investigation required by Wyo. Stat. 26-13-124."* The rule's authority section now cites § 26-13-124 expressly — so photo-only roof adjusting is chargeable as an unfair claims settlement practice.

⚠️ § 26-3(c)(ii): *"No insurer shall depreciate the cost of labor associated with the installation and tear-off of roofing products when adjusting a roofing claim."* Wyoming reaches the anti-labor-depreciation result by regulation, where most states got there through litigation over what "actual cash value" means. Note it covers tear-off, and note it is limited to roofing claims — nothing resolves labor depreciation for siding, interiors or anything else.

25/50/20, a UM Statute, and No UIM Statute At All

Minimums are 25/50/20 — § 31-9-405(b)(ii): *"$25,000.00 because of bodily injury to or death of one (1) person"*; *"$50,000.00 because of bodily injury to or death of two (2) or more persons"*; *"$20,000.00 because of injury to or destruction of property."* The property damage limb is twenty thousand, not twenty-five.

No PIP. No mandatory medical payments. No mandatory towing coverage. Wyoming is a pure tort state with no no-fault act.

⚠️ The entire Wyoming Uninsured Motorists' Act is four sections — and there is no underinsured motorist statute at all. *Broderick v. Dairyland Ins. Co.*, 2012 WY 22, confirms it: chapter 31-10 has no underinsured prong, no *"limits less than"* language, and no offset language. UM minimum limits are 25/50 bodily injury only; there is no UM property damage mandate.

The consequence is large. UIM in Wyoming is a purely contractual coverage — its trigger, its offset and its stacking are governed by the four corners of the endorsement, subject only to the ordinary rules construing ambiguity against the insurer. So there is no statutory answer to whether Wyoming UIM is difference-in-limits, add-on, or reduced by payments actually made. Read the endorsement.

⚠️ Rule ch. 23's anti-offset rule became bidirectional in 2025. The prior text said UM benefits *"shall not be reduced by payments made under any other section of the policy."* The current § 23-3(a) says *"shall not reduce or be reduced by."* So UM benefits can no longer be used to offset medical payments or bodily injury liability payments either — which kills the argument that a UM payment credits against med-pay. § 23-3(b) separately bars any workers' compensation offset against UM. Note ch. 23 governs *"uninsured motorists coverage"* and by its terms does not reach UIM endorsements.

Stacking is permitted, and the sources are judicial and regulatory rather than statutory. *Aaron v. State Farm*, 2001 WY 141, enforces anti-stacking clauses only where drafted clearly and unambiguously in lay terms — ambiguity is construed against the insurer and stacking results. Separately Rule § 23-2 mandates inter-policy aggregation for UM where separate premiums were paid, capping non-primary policies at the statutory minimum. Aggregation may never exceed actual damages.

No Standard Fire Policy, No Valued Policy Law, No Suit-Limitation Floor

Wyoming prescribes no standard fire policy. That negative was proved at three levels: Title 26's chapters were enumerated and there is no fire insurance chapter; chapter 15 was enumerated section by section and contains no policy form; and the Department's rule chapters were enumerated and none carries one.

What Wyoming has instead is file-and-approve. § 26-15-110(a): no form may be delivered *"unless the form is filed with and approved by the commissioner"*; (b) filing runs at least 45 days in advance, deemed approved on expiry unless acted on, with a possible 45-day extension.

⚠️ There is no valued policy law and no statutory definition of actual cash value. Wyoming's neighbors are a genuine trap here — Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota all have valued policy laws. Wyoming does not.

And there is no statutory floor on contractual suit limitations. The default is § 1-3-105(a)(i) — ten years for breach of a written contract, but policies may contractually shorten it and commonly specify twelve months. Nothing in Title 26 constrains that. The practical rule is simply: read the policy, because Wyoming supplies no floor.

Cancellation — § 26-35-202(a) sets four exclusive grounds: nonpayment; material misrepresentation which would have caused the company not to issue; substantial change in the risk assumed, except a change the insurer should reasonably have foreseen; and substantial breaches of contractual duties, conditions or warranties. Notice under (b) is not less than 10 days for nonpayment and not less than 45 days otherwise — except for material misrepresentation, which is expressly excluded from (b) and carries no statutory notice period at all. § 26-35-202(c) puts policies in force less than 60 days outside the whole scheme.

Nonrenewal — § 26-35-203: not less than 45 days, and the notice *"shall state the precise reason for nonrenewal."* No enumerated ground is required — only notice and a stated reason. A noncompliant nonrenewal *"is ineffective."*

The Consent Rule on Aftermarket Parts, and the 75% That Usually Does Not Apply

Rule ch. 19 governs aftermarket parts, and § 19-5 is much stronger than a disclosure rule. *"(a) No insurer shall directly or indirectly require the use of non-OEM parts nor shall any insurer accept any estimate or authorize any repair unless the consumer is advised that he or she is not required to accept non-OEM parts ... and consents in writing to the use of those parts BEFORE repairs are made. (b) No insurer shall directly or indirectly require the consumer to pay any difference in price if the consumer elects to use OEM parts."*

In practical effect, an unconsented non-OEM estimate in Wyoming becomes an OEM estimate at the insurer's cost. Add § 19-3's requirement that non-OEM parts carry permanent manufacturer identification, § 19-4's requirement that they be *"at least equal in quality to the original part in terms of fit and performance,"* and § 19-6's mandated disclosure in at least 10-point type.

⚠️ But read the scope before you apply any of it. § 19-2 defines *"Part"* as *"parts which generally constitute the exterior of a motor vehicle, including inner and outer panels"* and expressly excludes *"tires, windshields, or windows."* Chapter 19 reaches exterior sheet metal and panels only — not mechanical parts, suspension, lighting, glass or tires. Chapter 19 also contains no warranty requirement and no vehicle-age or mileage cutoff.

⚠️ Now the total loss threshold, because every published chart states it wrong. The 75% figure is genuinely in the statute — but § 31-2-107(a) is disjunctive: *"When a motor vehicle is declared a total loss by the insurance company or, in the event an insurance company is not involved in the settlement of the claim, sustains damage in an amount exceeding seventy-five percent (75%) of its actual retail cash value."*

So where an insurer is involved, the trigger is the insurer's own total-loss declaration and no percentage applies. The 75% governs only claims settled without an insurance company. There is no statutory threshold constraining an adjuster's total-loss decision in Wyoming, and charts reading *"Wyoming total loss threshold: 75%"* misdescribe the statute for every insured claim.

And § 31-2-107(d) carries an eight-year exemption no chart mentions: salvage branding does not apply to vehicles exceeding eight years of service — except that a vehicle previously branded salvage, reconstructed or flood-damaged in any state keeps that brand on all later Wyoming titles regardless of age.

$300,000, No Deductible — and a Fraud Regime That Barely Exists

The Wyoming Insurance Guaranty Association is at §§ 26-31-101 to 26-31-117 — a standalone chapter, exactly where you would look for it. It covers all direct insurance except *"life, title, surety, disability, credit, mortgage guaranty and ocean marine."*

§ 26-31-106(c) sets the obligations: the full amount for workers' compensation benefits; not more than $7,500 per policy for return of unearned premium; and not more than $300,000 for each covered claim otherwise.

Two figures depart from the NAIC model and both favor claimants. There is no claim deductible — the model's $100 is simply absent, proved by enumerating all four paragraphs of § 26-31-106(c). And there is no net worth exclusion — the modern high-net-worth carve-out does not appear anywhere in §§ 26-31-101 to -117.

The filing bar is the earlier of the court's final claims date or 25 months after the liquidation order (§ 26-31-111(c)). The unearned premium cap of $7,500 is notably lower than the $10,000 to $25,000 most states use.

⚠️ *"Covered claim"* excludes something that should matter to you personally. § 26-31-103(a)(ii)(D) excludes *"supplementary payment obligations, including but not limited to adjustment fees and expenses, attorney fees and expenses, court costs, interest and bond premiums."* An independent adjuster holding unpaid invoices from an insolvent carrier is not a covered claimant. The section also excludes punitive damages unless specifically named as covered risks, insurer and reinsurer subrogation, and IBNR.

Fraud is a flat misdemeanor under the Insurance Code. § 26-13-201 prohibits knowingly or willfully making false statements on an application, presenting a false claim or proof, or preparing a false document. § 26-13-202 supplies the penalty by reference: § 26-1-107 — up to $1,000, six months, or both, with each violation a separate offense. The felony tiers come in through § 26-13-202's *"greater penalty"* pathway — general theft under § 6-3-402 becomes a felony at $1,000, and workers' compensation fraud under § 27-14-510 becomes a felony at $500.

A Monopoly Fund That Only Covers Extrahazardous Work

Wyoming is one of four monopolistic states. The Legislative Service Office told the Joint Appropriations Committee in July 2023 that *"Wyoming is one of four states (North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, and Wyoming) that require employers to obtain workers' compensation coverage through the state's state fund rather than through the voluntary competitive insurance market."* It is administered by the Department of Workforce Services, Workers' Compensation Division — not by the Insurance Department.

⚠️ But the monopoly is narrower than the label suggests, and this is Wyoming's real anomaly. § 27-14-108(a) opens: *"This act applies to the following, which shall be deemed extrahazardous employment"* — followed by an enumeration keyed to NAICS codes. Coverage is compulsory only for extrahazardous employment. The LSO again: *"Wyoming employers of non-hazardous occupations may elect to provide workers' compensation insurance for their employees but are not required to."*

Election under § 27-14-108(j) is all-or-nothing — an electing employer *"may only elect to cover all his employees"* — and withdrawal requires the coverage to have run at least two years with contributions current.

So there are three market segments, and a private adjuster touches two of them. Extrahazardous employment goes to the state fund only. Non-extrahazardous employment that does not elect in may buy a private workers' compensation policy on the open market — the Department says so directly: *"These exempt employers may purchase workers' compensation insurance from private insurers on the open market."* And multistate employers carry stop-gap employers liability endorsements and out-of-state policies, which are private-market products. Those private claims are adjusted under the casualty line.

⚠️ § 27-14-105 is where a liability adjuster actually meets Wyoming workers' compensation, and it has three traps. The state's reimbursement is capped at the lesser of benefits paid or one-third of gross proceeds, *"without regard to the types of damages alleged"* — so no allocation argument reduces it, and there is no statutory made-whole rule. Recovery is *"reduced pro rata for attorney fees and costs."*

The traps: *"Before offering settlement to an employee, a third party or its insurer shall notify the state of the proposed settlement and give the state fifteen (15) days ... in which to object."* Failure exposes you to *"an independent action against the third party or its insurer for all payments made to and any amount reserved for ... the employee."* And *"the person paying the settlement remains liable to the state ... unless the state through the attorney general signs the release prior to payment."*

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