PIP and med-pay rules in Nevada

If someone told you to "file your PIP claim" after a Nevada crash, that advice came from a different state. Nevada does not sell personal injury protection. There is no no-fault system here, no PIP application, and no short window to open benefits before they disappear. What Nevada has instead is a fault-based system with one optional first-party coverage that fills part of the same role, and the rules around it are worth knowing before you talk to an adjuster.

Why Nevada has no PIP

PIP belongs to no-fault insurance states, where your own policy pays your medical bills no matter who caused the crash and, in return, your right to sue the other driver is limited. Nevada rejects that trade. It runs a fault-based, or tort, system, so the driver who caused the crash is responsible, through their liability insurance, for the harm they caused.¹ Because there is no no-fault mandate, PIP is not a product insurers write in Nevada, and no law requires you to carry it.

Fault is measured under Nevada's modified comparative negligence rule. You can still recover as long as your share of the blame "was not greater than" the other side's, which means you lose the right to recover only once you are more than 50 percent at fault, and if you are partly to blame, your award drops by your percentage.¹ That rule is why the at-fault driver's coverage, not a PIP account, sits at the center of most Nevada claims.

What Nevada actually requires, the med-pay offer

The closest thing Nevada has to PIP is medical payments coverage, usually shortened to med-pay. State law does not make you buy it, but it does force every insurer to put it in front of you. Under NRS 687B.145(3), an insurer writing a policy on a passenger car or motorcycle "must offer" you "the option of purchasing coverage in an amount of at least $1,000 for the payment of reasonable and necessary medical expenses resulting from a crash."² The offer goes out on a form approved by the Insurance Commissioner, and you add the coverage by requesting it in writing.²

A thousand dollars is the floor, not the ceiling. Insurers commonly sell med-pay in larger increments, and the premium is usually small. If you never signed anything adding it, you probably do not have it, because it is opt-in rather than standard.

No 14-day clock and no benefits deadline

This is where Nevada splits from the no-fault states people confuse it with. Florida's PIP law, for example, denies medical benefits unless you get your initial care within 14 days of the crash, with no exception for a good reason.³ Nevada has nothing like that. There is no statutory deadline to seek treatment to preserve med-pay and no PIP claim form to file within a set number of days. Med-pay is a term in your own policy, so the timing rules are whatever your policy says, usually prompt notice and reasonable proof of your bills.

That is not a license to wait. The deadline that does bite in Nevada is the statute of limitations on the injury claim itself, which is covered below.

How med-pay pays, and why the collateral source rule makes it worth having

Med-pay works like no-fault coverage in the practical sense. It pays your reasonable medical bills, and often those of your passengers, after a crash without anyone first proving who was at fault.² There is no deductible, and you do not have to wait for the other driver's insurer to accept blame. It can go toward ambulance charges, emergency room visits, and follow-up care up to your limit.

Here is the part that surprises people. Spending your med-pay does not shrink what you can still collect from the driver who hit you. Nevada follows a strict collateral source rule from the Nevada Supreme Court's decision in Proctor v. Castelletti, which adopted "a per se rule barring the admission of a collateral source of payment for an injury into evidence for any purpose."⁴ In plain terms, the at-fault driver's lawyer cannot tell the jury that your med-pay, or your health insurance, already covered part of your bills.⁴ So the money med-pay advances is not subtracted from your recovery against the person who caused the crash. Nevada law does not treat that as double-dipping. You are using coverage you paid for.

The coverages insurers must offer alongside med-pay

Med-pay is not the only optional protection Nevada makes insurers put on the table. The same statute, NRS 687B.145, requires your insurer to offer uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, known as UM/UIM, in an amount equal to your bodily injury liability limits, again on a Commissioner-approved form.² You can decline it, but only by not asking for it, and if you want it you request it in writing.² UM/UIM matters in a state where plenty of drivers carry only the minimum or nothing, because it steps in when the at-fault driver cannot cover your injuries.

The liability coverage every driver must carry is set by NRS 485.185: at least $25,000 for bodily injury or death of one person, $50,000 per crash when two or more people are hurt, and $20,000 for property damage, the limits usually written as 25/50/20.⁵ The Nevada Division of Insurance moved the minimums up to those numbers in 2018, and they are what your registration and proof of insurance get checked against.⁶ Those are floors. The at-fault driver's actual limits may be all that stands between you and an out-of-pocket loss, which is one more reason med-pay and UM/UIM tend to earn their small added premium.

The deadlines that really apply in Nevada

Since there is no PIP claim clock, the deadlines you have to watch are the statutes of limitations. For a personal injury from a crash, you have two years from the date of the crash to file suit under NRS 11.190(4)(e).⁷ For damage to your vehicle or other personal property, the window runs longer, three years under NRS 11.190(3)(c).⁷ Miss the injury deadline and the claim is generally gone no matter how clearly the other driver was at fault, so it is the date to protect first.

If your car lost market value after being wrecked and repaired, that is a separate property claim on its own three-year clock, and Nevada's rules for recovering it are laid out on our Nevada diminished value page. To document the crash for any of these claims, you will usually want the official police report, which you can request through our Nevada crash report guide. And if the injuries are serious or the insurer is fighting you, it is worth talking to a Nevada attorney, whom you can find through our legal directory.

Quick reference for a Nevada crash

Nevada runs an at-fault system and does not sell PIP.¹ Med-pay is the optional stand-in, offered at a $1,000 minimum, opt-in, with no 14-day treatment deadline.² Because of the collateral source rule, your med-pay stacks on top of what you recover from the at-fault driver instead of reducing it.⁴ And the clock that matters is two years for injuries, three years for property damage.⁷

This is general information about Nevada law, not legal advice for your specific situation.

Sources

1. Nevada Revised Statutes 41.141 (comparative negligence; Nevada's at-fault tort system), Nevada Legislature. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-041.html

2. Nevada Revised Statutes 687B.145 (required offer of medical payments coverage of at least $1,000 and of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage), Nevada Legislature. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/NRS-687B.html

3. Florida Statutes 627.736 (Florida PIP; initial services and care required within 14 days), The Florida Senate. https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2024/627.736

4. Proctor v. Castelletti, 112 Nev. 88, 911 P.2d 853 (1996) (per se collateral source rule), Supreme Court of Nevada, via CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1456091/proctor-v-castelletti/

5. Nevada Revised Statutes 485.185 (minimum liability limits of 25/50/20), Nevada Legislature. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-485.html

6. Higher Minimum Vehicle Liability Requirements, Nevada Division of Insurance. https://doi.nv.gov/Consumers/Automobile_Insurance/Higher_Minimum_Vehicle_Liability_Requirements

7. Nevada Revised Statutes 11.190 (two-year limit for injury to a person; three-year limit for injury to personal property), Nevada Legislature. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-011.html