Somewhere on your auto policy declarations page, usually below the liability limits and above the towing coverage, there is a line that says medical payments. Most Nevada drivers who have it do not know they have it. Many who know they have it never use it, because nobody at the insurance company calls to remind them that it exists after a crash.
Medical payments coverage, universally shortened to MedPay, pays reasonable medical expenses from a motor vehicle crash regardless of who caused the crash. No fault determination. No waiting for the other driver’s insurer to accept liability. No argument about percentages. You are hurt, you were in a covered vehicle, the bills get paid up to your limit.
In a state where the mandatory minimum liability coverage would not cover a single night in a Las Vegas trauma unit, a coverage that pays immediately and asks nothing about fault deserves far more attention than it gets.
The coverage sitting unused on your declarations page
Pull out your policy. Look for a line reading medical payments, med pay, or medical expense coverage, followed by a number. Common amounts run from 1,000 dollars at the low end up through 5,000, 10,000 or more depending on what you bought and what your carrier offers.
If there is a number there, that money is available to you after a crash. It is first party coverage, meaning it comes from your own insurer under your own contract, and it does not depend on proving anyone was negligent. It is not a loan. It is not an advance against your settlement in the ordinary sense. It is a benefit you paid a premium to receive.
The reason it goes unused is procedural rather than sinister. MedPay generally has to be claimed. Your carrier opens a liability file when you report a crash and does not necessarily open a MedPay file unless you ask, and the coverage carries its own notice and proof requirements that are easy to blow past while you are focused on treatment.
What MedPay actually pays for
Coverage varies by policy, so the contract language controls, but MedPay typically responds to reasonable and necessary medical expenses arising from the crash. That usually includes ambulance transport, emergency department charges, diagnostic imaging, hospital and surgical bills, physician visits, physical therapy, chiropractic care, dental work for crash related damage, and in many policies prosthetic devices and funeral expenses.
Coverage usually extends beyond the named insured. Depending on the policy language, it commonly reaches resident family members, passengers in your vehicle, and in many policies you and your household members while occupying someone else’s vehicle or while struck as a pedestrian or bicyclist. That last category surprises people. You can be hurt walking across a street, own a car you were not driving, and still have MedPay available.
What MedPay does not pay is equally important. It does not pay for lost wages. It does not pay for pain and suffering. It does not pay for property damage or a rental car. Those categories belong to a liability claim against the at fault driver, and the way pain and suffering damages are evaluated has nothing to do with your MedPay limit.
Nevada law requires the offer, not the purchase
Here is the part most drivers have never been told. Nevada requires insurers to put this coverage in front of you. Under NRS 687B.145, an insurance company transacting motor vehicle insurance in this State must offer an insured under a policy covering the use of a passenger car the option of purchasing coverage in an amount of at least 1,000 dollars for the payment of reasonable and necessary medical expenses resulting from a crash. The offer is made on a form approved by the Commissioner of Insurance.
The statute requires the offer. It does not require you to accept it. If you declined, or if the offer scrolled past during an online quote and you clicked through, you may not have it. An insured who initially declined can request the coverage later in writing.
The same statute is the one requiring insurers to offer uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in an amount equal to the bodily injury limits sold. Those two offers frequently appear on the same form, and they are the two most valuable optional coverages an ordinary Nevada driver can buy. General consumer information about auto policies is available from the Nevada Division of Insurance.
None of this changes Nevada’s mandatory liability minimums, which under NRS 485.185 are 25,000 dollars for bodily injury or death of one person, 50,000 dollars per accident, and 20,000 dollars for property damage. Those limits protect people you injure. They do nothing for you.
Why your insurer usually cannot take MedPay back
In most states, MedPay comes with a catch. Your insurer pays your medical bills, then asserts a subrogation right or a reimbursement lien against whatever you recover from the at fault driver. You end up handing the money back at settlement, and the coverage functions as a short term loan.
Nevada is different, and this is one of the more meaningful consumer protections in Nevada insurance law. In Maxwell v. Allstate Insurance Companies, 102 Nev. 502 (1986), the Nevada Supreme Court held that a subrogation clause allowing an insurer to recover medical payments benefits from its own insured’s third party recovery violates public policy. The reasoning was straightforward. The insured paid a premium for a benefit. Letting the carrier collect the premium and then claw the benefit back whenever the insured recovers from another source defeats the purpose of buying the coverage, particularly where injuries are severe enough that both recoveries together still leave the person short.
The practical effect is that MedPay in Nevada is generally money you keep, in addition to what you recover from the at fault driver, rather than money you are borrowing against your own case. That is not universally true of every arrangement involving your medical bills. Health insurers, government programs and medical providers operate under different rules and may hold enforceable reimbursement rights, so the presence of a MedPay payment does not mean nothing has to be repaid to anyone. It means the MedPay carrier itself is generally not the one lining up to be repaid.
MedPay is not PIP and it is not health insurance
Nevada is a fault based state for auto claims. It does not have mandatory personal injury protection the way a no fault state does. Drivers coming from Florida, Michigan, New York or New Jersey often assume their own policy automatically pays their medical bills and their lost income after any crash. In Nevada it does not unless you purchased the coverage.
MedPay and PIP get confused because both are first party and both pay medical bills without regard to fault. The difference is scope. PIP in a no fault state typically includes wage replacement and other economic losses and comes with limits on when you may sue. MedPay covers medical expenses only and places no restriction whatsoever on your right to pursue the at fault driver.
MedPay is also not a substitute for health insurance. It stacks alongside it. Many people use MedPay to cover deductibles, copays and out of network charges their health plan will not absorb, which is often exactly where an injured person’s cash pressure is worst in the first two months.
How MedPay fits with the rest of a Nevada injury claim
Nevada follows the collateral source rule, and it follows a strict version of it. In Proctor v. Castelletti, 112 Nev. 88 (1996), the Nevada Supreme Court adopted a per se rule barring the admission of evidence of a collateral source of payment for an injury for any purpose. The court reasoned that such evidence inevitably prejudices a jury by suggesting the plaintiff has already been compensated, and that no probative value outweighs that danger.
The upshot is that a defendant generally cannot stand in front of a Nevada jury and argue that your damages should be lower because your own insurer already paid some of your bills. The wrongdoer does not get a discount for your foresight in buying coverage.
Nevada’s modified comparative negligence rule under NRS 41.141 still governs the liability side. If a jury assigns you a share of fault, your recovery is reduced by that percentage, and if your share exceeds 50 percent you recover nothing. MedPay is untouched by that calculation. It pays whether you were 0 percent or 100 percent responsible, which is precisely why it matters most in the cases where liability is genuinely contested. The mechanics of fault allocation are covered further in our overview of Nevada car accident claims.
Riders should pay particular attention here. Motorcycle policies handle medical coverage differently from passenger auto policies, limits are often lower, and injuries are usually more severe, which is a bad combination. Our page on Nevada motorcycle accident claims addresses the coverage gaps riders run into.
Using MedPay without damaging the rest of your case
Ask for it in writing, promptly. Tell your carrier you are making a claim under the medical payments coverage and ask them to confirm the limit and the documentation they need. Do this even if you are certain the other driver was at fault, because certainty about fault does not accelerate the other carrier’s decision by a single day.
Read the notice provisions. Policies frequently require prompt notice and reasonable proof of the expense, and some contain time limits for submitting bills. A coverage you forgot to claim for eight months can become a coverage you no longer have.
Be careful about what you sign. A request for a broad medical authorization giving an adjuster open access to your entire medical history is not the same as submitting the bills from this crash. Limit the scope. Prior treatment records are the standard raw material for an argument that your injuries are degenerative rather than traumatic.
Keep your own ledger of every bill, every payment and every balance. When a settlement is finally negotiated, knowing exactly what was paid by whom is what allows the outstanding balances to be handled correctly rather than discovered afterward. If you are unsure how the pieces fit together, our Las Vegas car accident lawyers and our broader Nevada personal injury team can walk through your declarations page with you.
The simplest advice in this entire article is to look at your policy tonight, before anything happens. If there is no medical payments line, call your agent and ask what it costs to add. It is usually one of the least expensive lines on an auto policy and one of the few that pays without an argument.
If you were injured in a Nevada crash and are trying to work out which coverages apply, The Bourassa Law Group offers a free consultation to review your policy and your claim and explain your options with no obligation.
This article is general information about Nevada law and insurance and is not legal advice. Policy language varies, coverage depends on the specific contract, and reading this does not create an attorney client relationship.
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