Car insurance claims in Oklahoma

Oklahoma decides motor-vehicle claims by fault, and it does so without any no-fault layer at all: a full-text search of the Insurance Code finds the words «no-fault» and «personal injury protection» nowhere in its 1,507 pages. What the Compulsory Insurance Law requires instead is liability cover — under 47 O.S. § 7-601(A) every owner must maintain «security for the payment of loss resulting from the liability imposed by law for bodily injury, death and property damage» — and 23 O.S. § 13 then apportions that liability. The apportionment is worth reading closely, because the statute fixes no percentage. Contributory negligence «shall not bar a recovery, unless any negligence of the person so injured, damaged or killed, is of greater degree than any negligence of the person, firm or corporation causing such damage, or unless any negligence of the person so injured, damaged or killed, is of greater degree than the combined negligence of any persons, firms or corporations causing such damage.» The test is comparative, not numeric: a claimant whose share is equal to the other side’s is not barred, and where several drivers contributed the comparison is against their combined negligence, so a claimant who is the single most negligent party can still recover. Below the bar, § 14 diminishes recovery in proportion, and § 12 leaves the question to the jury «in all cases whatsoever». Two further Oklahoma rules change what a share is worth. Since 1 November 2011, liability among two or more tortfeasors is «several only» (§ 15), so each defendant pays only its own allocated share and the claimant carries the risk of an uninsured or insolvent co-defendant. And since the same date, an uninsured claimant — however blameless — is limited by 47 O.S. § 7-116(A) to «medical costs, property damage, and lost income» and «shall not include any award for pain and suffering», a limitation the at-fault driver’s own insurer may assert, subject to seven exceptions the section lists in full, among them passengers who do not own the vehicle, anyone not in a vehicle at all, wrongful-death claims, hit-and-run, intentional collisions, and drunk-driving cases that end in a conviction or the drunk driver’s death.

The court deadlines are simple, short, and the same for both heads of loss. Section 95(A)(3) of Title 12 gives two years from accrual for «an action for taking, detaining, or injuring personal property» and, in the very same sentence and under the same «Within two (2) years» preamble, for «an action for injury to the rights of another, not arising on contract, and not hereinafter enumerated» — the residual limb that carries a negligently inflicted injury. Vehicle damage and bodily injury therefore expire together at two years, and there is no longer property clock to fall back on. The one-year period in the next paragraph is a trap worth naming: it reaches «assault, battery» and the other intentional torts by name, not an ordinary crash. Suing your own insurer is a different question, and the answer is not the five-year written-contract period of § 95(A)(1) but whatever the policy says. Under 36 O.S. § 3617 any clause «preventing the bringing of an action against any such insurer for more than six (6) months after the cause of action accrues» is void, as is any clause cutting the period below two years for non-property insurance or below one year for property insurance — and the void clause «shall not affect the validity of the other provisions of the policy». Read the suit-limitation clause in the policy, because that, bounded by this floor, is the deadline that will be argued. No amendment to § 95 after 2017 appears in the compilation read, which is a negative from the compilation’s own history line rather than from a search of the session laws.

The insurer’s clock is statutory in Oklahoma rather than regulatory, and it is markedly slower than in most states. Under 36 O.S. § 1250.6(A) a property and casualty insurer has thirty days after receiving notification of a claim to acknowledge it, unless it pays within that period; supplying claim forms, instructions and reasonable assistance inside the same thirty days is deemed compliance. Under § 1250.7(A) the first-party claimant must be advised «of the acceptance or denial of the claim by the insurer, or if further investigation is necessary» within sixty days after receipt of properly executed proofs of loss — so the duty is discharged by saying more time is needed, and a denial, when it comes, must be in writing and must name the policy provision relied on. Investigation must be completed within sixty days of notification of proof of loss, with a reasons letter at sixty days if it is not, and, unusually, an outer cap: «the time for investigation shall not exceed one hundred twenty (120) days after receipt of proof of loss», defeasible only for evidenced fraud or arson, with twenty further days available after a Governor-declared catastrophe. Every later pertinent communication from the claimant that reasonably suggests a response is expected carries its own thirty days under § 1250.4(C). Note the units: § 1250.4(B) says «twenty (20) calendar days» for a Commissioner’s inquiry, so where the same Act says only «days» it means the plain, unqualified form. What the Act does not contain is a deadline to pay. Its complete set of day counts was audited end to end and none is a payment period; § 1250.8(H) requires only that an insurer «fully and promptly pay for the cost of the motor vehicle repair services or products», so no payment deadline is published above and none may be derived from the thirty-day acknowledgement, the sixty-day decision or the 120-day investigation cap. All of these clocks stop the moment suit is filed (§ 1250.7(G)). One duty in the Act is owed to claimants nobody insures: under § 1250.7(E) an unrepresented claimant, first party or third party, must be given written notice that a time limit is expiring, and «such notice shall be given to first party claimants and third party claimants one year after the date of the loss» — halfway through the two-year period. The Act is enforced by the Commissioner, who must receive and process individual complaints and investigate where a pattern emerges (§ 1250.10(C)), with civil penalties of $100 to $5,000 per occurrence; its own text confers no action on the claimant, but it also contains no clause disclaiming a private right of action, so neither is asserted here. Whether the Insurance Department’s own rules in title 365 of the Administrative Code add any further day count has not yet been verified against a primary text and is not stated here.

On cover, on repairs and on reporting, three figures are easy to state wrongly. The compulsory minimum is 25/50/25, and it is fixed not in the policy-contents section usually cited but in the definition of «minimum liability insurance limits» at 47 O.S. § 7-103(2)(b), which attaches it to «vehicle liability policies issued or renewed on or after April 1, 2005»; the older 10/20/10 tier survives in the same definition for policies issued or renewed before that date, and § 7-324(b)(2) carries the same amounts for the certified proof-of-financial-responsibility policy, where the insurer’s liability «shall become absolute whenever injury or damage covered by said motor vehicle liability policy occurs» and no post-loss agreement, statement by the insured or breach of the policy defeats it. Uninsured-motorist coverage works the opposite way round from what «optional» suggests: under 36 O.S. § 3636(A) no liability policy may be issued at all «unless the policy includes» it, so it is in by default, at limits no lower than the statutory bodily-injury minimums and no higher than the policy’s own, and it leaves only by the written rejection of § 3636(G) — a rejection that, once signed, «shall remain valid for the life of the policy» through every renewal, reinstatement and amendment, and that only a named insured’s written request can undo. The statutory offer form’s own minimum is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per occurrence, dated to the same 1 April 2005 changeover. Oklahoma has no separate underinsured coverage: § 3636(C) folds an underinsured vehicle into the definition of an uninsured one whenever its «liability limits … are less than the amount of the claim», expressly «regardless of the amount of coverage of either of the parties in relation to each other», and a search of every section heading in the Insurance Code found no underinsured-motorist section at all. One deadline inside that coverage catches people out: before settling with the at-fault driver at limits, the insured must give the uninsured-motorist carrier certified-mail notice, and if the carrier does not substitute its own payment within sixty days it loses all right to the proceeds. On repairs, § 1250.8 is statute rather than rule, and four of its subsections are worth knowing: an insurer may not require repairs at a specific facility, may not require a claimant to travel unreasonably, may not tell a third-party claimant to go to their own policy where «liability for motor vehicle damages is reasonably clear», and «shall not force a claimant to execute a full settlement release in order to settle a property damage claim involving a personal injury». Subsection (G)’s rule on reductions for betterment or depreciation is a different question from diminished value and is not offered as an answer to it; whether a properly repaired vehicle’s residual loss in market value is recoverable has not yet been verified against a primary text and is not stated here. As for reporting, the duty that is immediate is narrow: under 47 O.S. § 10-107 a driver in an accident «resulting in injury to or death of any person» must give notice «immediately, by the quickest means of communication», and there is no dollar threshold in it. The three-hundred-dollar figure so often quoted belongs to § 10-108(A), and it triggers a written report to the Department of Public Safety only «if settlement of the collision has not been made within six (6) months after the date of the accident» — if it has been settled, the parties report the settlement instead, and collisions on private property are excluded outright. Separately, leaving the scene of a property-damage-only collision exposes the driver to «liability for damages in an amount equal to three times the value of the damage caused by the accident» under § 10-103.