Car insurance claims in Arizona

Arizona decides motor-vehicle claims by fault, and it shares that fault more generously than most states. What a driver must buy under A.R.S. § 28-4135(A)(1) is liability cover against «the liability imposed by law», and § 12-2505(A) then apportions that liability: if a jury applies contributory negligence or assumption of risk, «the claimant’s action is not barred, but the full damages shall be reduced in proportion to the relative degree of the claimant’s fault». There is no percentage anywhere in the section, which is what makes Arizona a pure comparative fault state — a driver found ninety percent responsible still recovers ten percent of the loss, where in most neighbouring states they would recover nothing. The one exception is not a percentage either: under the same subsection there is no right to comparative negligence «in favor of any claimant who has intentionally, wilfully or wantonly caused or contributed to the injury or wrongful death». Nothing in the compulsory-cover statute creates a first-party benefit scheme, and no Arizona no-fault or personal-injury-protection chapter was found in the titles read.

The court deadlines are unusually simple and unusually short. Section 12-542 gives two years from accrual for injuries done to the person of another, for injuries where death ensues — accruing, the statute says, at the death of the party injured — and, in the same list, for trespass for injury done to the property of another and for taking or carrying away the goods and chattels of another. Injury and vehicle damage therefore expire together at two years, so there is no later property clock to fall back on. The three-year period of § 12-543 is sometimes offered for vehicle damage; it was read and it is not available, because that section covers oral debt, stated or open accounts, and relief on the ground of fraud or mistake. Suing your own insurer is a different question, and the answer is not the six-year written-contract period of § 12-548 but whatever your policy says: § 20-1115(A) voids any clause preventing an action against the insurer more than six months after accrual, and any clause cutting the period below two years for non-property insurance or below one year for property insurance, while leaving the rest of the policy standing. Read the suit-limitation clause, because that is the deadline that will be argued.

The insurer’s clock is in the Department’s rule rather than in the statute, and it changes units between subsections — which is where readers go wrong. Under A.A.C. R20-6-801(E)(1) an insurer has ten working days from notification of a claim to acknowledge receipt, unless it pays within those ten working days; each later letter from the claimant that reasonably suggests a response is expected carries its own ten working days (E)(3). Investigation must be completed within thirty days, in plain days, «unless the investigation cannot reasonably be completed within 30 days» (F). Acceptance or denial is due within fifteen working days after receipt of properly executed proofs of loss, in writing where it is a denial and naming the provision relied on (G)(1)(a); if more time is needed, the insurer says so within the same fifteen working days and then writes again at forty-five days and every forty-five days after that (G)(1)(b). No period within which an accepted claim must actually be paid appears in the two instruments read — neither in R20-6-801, read end to end, nor in A.R.S. § 20-461. That statute fixes no day count at all, reaches conduct only where it is frequent enough to indicate a general business practice, and says in subsection (D) that it gives the insured no private right or cause of action, only an administrative remedy to the director.

On cover and on reporting, two figures are easy to state wrongly. A policy issued or renewed beginning 1 July 2020 must carry at least $25,000 for bodily injury or death of one person, $50,000 for two or more, and $15,000 for property damage, and that date is written into § 28-4009(A)(2)(b) itself; the older 15/30/10 figures still govern policies issued or renewed on or before 30 June 2020 and, indefinitely, certificated self-insurers. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is optional, and the duty runs the other way from what is often said: the insurer must offer each of them by written notice on a director-approved form at limits no lower than the policy’s own bodily-injury limits, and the coverage enters the policy at the named insured’s request — the declarations page, not a signed waiver, «constitutes the final expression of the named insured’s decision to purchase or reject uninsured motorist coverage» (§ 20-259.01(A), (B)). As for reporting, the driver’s duty under § 28-666(A) is triggered by injury or death alone, with no dollar threshold, and must be met «immediately by the quickest means of communication». The $2,000 figure people quote belongs to § 28-667 and is the threshold for the officer’s written report, due within twenty-four hours of completing the investigation; a person involved in the accident may request a copy. Whether inherent diminished value is recoverable is settled by no Arizona statute or regulation in the instruments read, and no Arizona opinion could be opened, so this page states nothing on it.