It’s more common than you think, and you’re not out of options. Every week in Clark County, people who did nothing wrong get hit on I-15, on Boulder Highway, or at a light on Charleston, and then learn that the driver who caused it has no policy, or has one that will not pay. The shock is real. So is the fact that Nevada law built a safety net for exactly this moment, and most of it sits inside your own insurance policy.
Why It Happens More Often than You Think
When people hear “uninsured driver,” they picture someone who never bought a policy. That is only one version. For the purpose of your claim, NRS 690B.020 treats a whole list of situations as uninsured, and several of them involve drivers who honestly believed they were covered.
Under that section, a vehicle is uninsured when the DMV has no evidence of financial responsibility on file for it, when no bodily injury liability insurance or bond is in force at the time of the crash, when the coverage in force falls short of what Nevada requires (to the extent of the shortfall), when the insurer denies coverage or is insolvent, and when the driver took the car without permission, or drove a car whose policy covers only its owner, and has no coverage of their own. A hit-and-run driver who is never identified belongs on the list too.
The statute goes one step further. If no evidence of financial responsibility reaches the DMV within 60 days after a crash that caused injury or death, the vehicle is presumed uninsured. The Nevada DMV keeps that evidence for every registered vehicle in the state, so a lapsed policy or a bounced premium payment lands in the same place for you as a driver who never bought coverage at all.
What Nevada Requires Every Driver to Carry
NRS 485.185 requires every owner of a vehicle registered in Nevada to keep liability insurance in place continuously, from a company licensed and approved to do business here. The section sets three minimum limits, one for bodily injury or death of a single person in a crash, a higher one for bodily injury or death of two or more people in the same crash, and a third for damage to other people’s property. Mopeds are the one exception.
Those minimums are modest. The per person figure is in the tens of thousands, and one night in a trauma bay at UMC or Sunrise can pass it before you have seen a surgeon. Add the surgery, weeks of missed work, and months of physical therapy, and a driver carrying the legal minimum is insured on paper and close to uninsured in practice. That is the underinsured problem, and it catches more people than the fully uninsured one. In the most severe cases, the ones we handle as catastrophic injury claims, the at-fault driver’s policy is rarely the main source of recovery.
Your Own Policy Is the First Place to Look
NRS 690B.020 says no auto liability policy may be issued in Nevada unless it includes coverage that protects the people insured under it when they are legally entitled to recover from the owner or driver of an uninsured or hit-and-run vehicle, for bodily injury, sickness or disease, including death. The statute calls it uninsured vehicle coverage. Most people know it as UM.
The coverage must be at least as large as the minimum bodily injury liability limits under chapter 485, and it may be in any greater amount. Nevada insurers also sell underinsured motorist coverage, UIM, which steps in when the at-fault driver has a policy but the limits are smaller than your losses. After this kind of crash, UM and UIM are often the largest pool of money available.
The only way UM coverage is missing from a Nevada policy is if the named insured rejected it in writing, on a form the insurer furnished that describes the coverage being rejected. Once rejected, it stays off on renewals unless the named insured requests it again in writing. So if you never signed a rejection form, the coverage should be there. If an adjuster tells you it is not, ask for the signed rejection.
How to Find Out Whether You Have It
Pull your declarations page, the short summary that came with your policy or sits in your insurer’s app, and look for these lines.
- Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury, often shortened to UM or UMBI, with a per person and a per accident limit.
- Underinsured Motorist Bodily Injury, shortened to UIM, sometimes combined with UM on a single line as UM/UIM.
- Medical Payments, shortened to MedPay, with a single per person limit.
- Uninsured Motorist Property Damage, which some Nevada policies offer for damage to your car.
If you were a passenger, check the policy on the car you were in first, then your own. A policy held by a relative who lives with you may matter too. Whether policies can be combined depends on their language, so gather every declarations page in the house and let us read them.
A UM claim is a claim against your own insurer. You still have to prove the other driver was at fault and prove your damages, and your insurer has every incentive to argue both points. Nevada law holds insurers to standards of fair claims handling, and one that misrepresents your coverage or drags its feet when liability is clear answers for that too. Do this homework before you give a recorded statement to anyone, including your own carrier.
Hit-and-Run Counts as Uninsured
Drivers who leave the scene are common on the Strip, in casino parking garages, and on the freeways at night. Nevada does not make you find them before you can recover. NRS 690B.020 puts a vehicle whose owner or operator is unknown, or cannot be found after reasonable diligence, in the uninsured category, and your UM coverage responds to it.
Two conditions attach. First, there must have been physical contact between the unknown vehicle and you, or the vehicle you were in. A car that swerved at you and made you crash without touching you is a harder case under the statute. Second, you or someone on your behalf must have reported the crash within the time Nevada law requires, to the police department of the city where it happened, or to the county sheriff or the Nevada Highway Patrol if it happened in an unincorporated area. In the City of Las Vegas and the unincorporated county, including most of the Strip, that means Metro. Henderson and North Las Vegas have their own departments, and NHP works the freeways.
Call 911 from the scene, get the report number, and write down every detail you have about the vehicle while it is fresh, including partial plates, color, damage, and direction of travel. Businesses and intersections across the valley have cameras, and footage is often overwritten within days.
Medical Payments Coverage Pays Regardless of Fault
MedPay is optional in Nevada, and a lot of people carry a modest amount of it without realizing. It pays medical bills for you and your passengers after a crash no matter who was at fault, with no need to prove the other driver did anything wrong. It is usually the fastest money available, and it can keep a physical therapy schedule going while the liability fight plays out.
Use it in the right order. MedPay first for the early bills, then health insurance, then the UM claim and any claim against the driver for the rest. Health insurers and some providers will expect to be repaid from a settlement, and the order in which you use each source changes how much you keep at the end.
Going After the Driver Personally
An uninsured driver is still legally responsible for the harm they caused. You can sue them, win a judgment, and collect it from wages, bank accounts, property, or future assets for years. Whether that is worth doing depends entirely on who the driver is.
Many uninsured drivers are uninsured because money is tight, and a judgment against someone with no assets is a piece of paper. A driver who let a policy lapse by accident, a business owner, or someone with home equity and a steady salary may be well worth pursuing. Nevada also gives an unpaid crash judgment teeth. Once a certified copy reaches the DMV, the driver’s license and registrations are suspended until the judgment is satisfied or a payment arrangement is in place.
One coordination point. When your own insurer pays your UM claim, NRS 690B.020 gives it a right, to the extent of that payment, to the proceeds of any settlement or recovery from the person responsible. Your claim against the driver and your insurer’s claim have to be managed together rather than allowed to collide.
Other Parties Who May Share the Blame
The driver with no insurance is often not the only party responsible, and the others usually do have insurance.
- The driver’s employer. When a person causes injury while working for someone else, Nevada law makes the employer responsible for the employee’s conduct as well. A delivery driver, a contractor’s crew heading to a job in Summerlin, or an employee running an errand for the boss can all bring a commercial policy into the case, and rideshare companies carry coverage that applies while the driver is on a trip.
- A road authority. A crash caused or made worse by a missing sign, a dark signal, a poorly marked construction zone, or a design defect can bring in the city, Clark County, or the Nevada Department of Transportation. Claims against a government body must be filed with that body within two years, so these need attention early. Our piece on crash claims on the 215 Beltway and St. Rose Parkway in Henderson shows how road design and traffic control end up in a claim.
- A bar or a host. Nevada gives anyone who serves alcohol to an adult broad protection from liability for what that adult does afterward, and licensed bars and their staff keep that protection even when the drinker was under 21. The opening is narrow, and it applies to an unlicensed host who knowingly served, or knowingly allowed drinking by, someone under 21.
- Another driver. Many crashes involve more than two cars, and fault is often shared. A driver who turned in front of the uninsured driver, or who was speeding through the intersection, may hold part of it. Our article on fault in unprotected left turns on flashing yellow arrows in Las Vegas explains how that split gets made.
Nevada’s comparative fault rule matters here. As long as your share of fault is not greater than the combined fault of everyone else, you can still recover, reduced by your percentage. Expect your own UM carrier to make the shared-fault argument the missing insurer would have made.
The Timeline You Are Working Against
Several clocks run at once after a crash with an uninsured driver, and they do not run at the same speed.
- Two years to file a lawsuit. NRS 11.190 gives two years to bring an action to recover damages for injuries to a person, or for the death of a person, caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. The clock does not run while an injured person is under 18 or legally incapacitated, and time a defendant spends outside Nevada does not count.
- The policy’s own deadlines. Your UM and MedPay coverage are contracts, and the policy sets its own notice, cooperation, and proof of loss requirements. Some are measured in days, so send us the policy the week of the crash.
- Sixty days for the DMV presumption. Under NRS 690B.020, a vehicle in a crash that caused injury or death is presumed uninsured if no evidence of financial responsibility reaches the DMV within 60 days. That presumption helps you, so make sure the other vehicle is identified in the police report.
- Two years for an insolvent insurer. If the other driver’s insurer cannot pay because it is insolvent, and that insolvency existed at the time of the crash or arises within two years after it, NRS 690B.020 treats the other vehicle as uninsured and your own UM coverage steps in.
Every case turns on its own facts. Get the report number, pull every declarations page in your household, keep every bill and every missed shift, and do not sign anything from any insurer, including your own. We will read the policies, open the UM claim the right way, find the parties who share the blame, and keep every deadline.
If you were hit by a driver with no insurance anywhere in the Las Vegas valley, tell us what happened at our contact page and we will start with your own policy the same day.
1-800-870-8910