Nevada motor-damage payments and appraiser roles

What you will learn

• Identify the trigger and required payee for the motor-damage payment rule.
• Distinguish appraisal activity from related insurance roles.
• Apply licensing exemptions and the stated bond requirement without extending them beyond their scope.

Before you start

Before you start, review Lesson 24: After a loss: notice, protection, proof and insurer response, Lesson 30: Who needs which Nevada insurance license?. You can return to those lessons when a term or step is unfamiliar.

Separate the repair bill from the appraiser's authority

A damaged vehicle raises more than one question. When must the insurer pay a completed repair bill? Must the vehicle actually be repaired? Who may work as a motor vehicle physical damage appraiser? Nevada answers these in different provisions. Knowing an auto policy's coverage terms does not, by itself, answer the payment or licensing question.

The payment clock starts with the specified repair statement

NRS 686A.300 applies to an insurer issuing insurance that covers damage to a motor vehicle. It prohibits delayed payment after the insurer receives the specified statement of charges from a garage or licensed body shop previously authorized by the insured to make the repairs. The section defines delay as failing to issue a check or draft within 30 days after receiving the statement for repairs that have been satisfactorily completed. This is not a clock that begins automatically on the accident date, and an estimate for unfinished work is not the stated trigger.

Paying someone is not the same as using the required payee

The check or draft must be payable to the garage or licensed body shop, or jointly to the insured and that garage or shop. Under this particular rule, a check payable only to the insured does not match either stated payee option. A licensed body shop here means one licensed under Nevada's chapter 487. Keep the source, satisfactory completion, receipt date and payee together when analyzing the payment duty.

Worked example: use receipt, not the earlier accident

A fictional insured authorizes a licensed body shop to repair covered damage. The shop completes the work satisfactorily and sends the required statement, which the insurer receives later. The insurer then waits 35 days from receipt to issue its check. That exceeds the section's 30-day period. Moving the accident date earlier or later does not fix the delay: the statutory clock in this example starts when the insurer receives the qualifying statement.

Pause and predict

The repair statement specified by the payment rule arrives several days after the accident. A learner starts the payment clock at the accident. What must be corrected first?

A financed vehicle has an additional repair rule

If the vehicle is subject to a security interest—such as a lender's secured interest—or its legal owner differs from its registered owner, .300 requires repair by a garage or licensed body shop unless either exception applies:

• The insurer declares the vehicle a total loss.
• The total repair charge in the specified statement is $300 or less.

Exactly $300 is within the small-repair exception; $301 is not. Outside this subsection's restriction, the section does not prohibit the insurer and insured from settling the damage claim without arranging repair. An exception to mandatory repair does not itself determine the settlement amount or erase another contractual duty.

An appraiser evaluates damage as a separate-fee business

NRS 684B.010 defines a motor vehicle physical damage appraiser by the work performed: a person or business that, for a separate fee, conducts the business of appraising damage to vehicles insured under automobile physical-damage policies or on behalf of third-party claimants. Appraising damage is not the same question as selling a policy or deciding what liability coverage a driver bought. A job title alone does not settle which license or exemption applies.

Check the licensing rule and its explicit exemptions

Under NRS 684B.020, acting as a motor vehicle physical damage appraiser on behalf of an insurance company or a business engaged in adjustment or appraisal of motor claims generally requires a license from the Commissioner and payment of applicable license fees. The section exempts a licensed insurance adjuster and an employee of an authorized insurer, motor club, motor vehicle dealer or automobile body repair shop. An independent contractor should not simply assume an employee exemption. Nor does a producer license, by itself, appear on this exemption list.

An exemption here is not permission to ignore every other law

A licensed adjuster is exempt from this particular appraiser-licensing section; that does not mean the adjuster has no licensing duties at all. The same boundary matters for the listed employees. Section .020 provides an administrative fine of no more than $1,000 for each violation by someone acting without the license who is not exempt. It also contains a historical qualification route for people in the business during the two consecutive years immediately before January 1, 1972—not a current rule that any two years of experience automatically qualifies a new applicant.

A licensed applicant must provide and maintain the required bond

NRS 684B.030 requires the applicant to file a surety bond before license issuance and keep it in force while licensed. It must comply with NRS 679B.175, and its amount is determined by the Commissioner. A replacement bond must meet the initial bond's requirements. Do not treat a fixed dollar figure from an older summary as the amount specified by the current section, or assume the bond matters only on the first day of licensing.

Try the trigger and the boundary

1. The insurer receives only a preliminary estimate before repairs begin. Is that the completed-repair statement trigger described here?
2. The qualifying statement has been received. Is a check payable only to the insured one of .300's listed payee options?
3. A vehicle has a lender's security interest. The stated total repair charge is exactly $300. Does the small-repair exception apply? What changes at $301, assuming no total-loss declaration?
4. An insurer and insured settle without repair when no subsection 3 restriction applies. Does .300 categorically forbid that settlement?
5. A licensed adjuster performs the described appraising work. Does .020 require a separate appraiser license from that adjuster?
6. An independent appraiser has only a producer license. Is that alone one of the listed exemptions?
7. A new applicant says any two years of appraising experience creates automatic qualification. What is wrong with that claim?
8. Must the required surety bond remain in force after the appraiser license is issued?

Check the rule that decides each case

What to remember

The motor-repair payment rule turns on a qualifying statement, satisfactory completion, receipt and the specified payee. Security interests and separate legal ownership can make repair mandatory, subject to the stated exceptions. Appraiser authority depends on the statutory role, licensing rule and exemptions—not merely on having some insurance-related job or license.