Nevada Casualty Contracts and Surety (NRS 681A.020, 681A.070 & 691B)

Why "Kinds of Insurance" Appear on the Nevada Casualty Outline

Pearson VUE's Nevada statutes—casualty-only domain expects you to know what Nevada law calls casualty and how surety is carved out as its own kind. Those definitions live in NRS Chapter 681A. They are not abstract taxonomy: an insurer's certificate of authority, a producer's line appointments, and whether a bond is a surety product or a casualty product all trace back to these sections.

National courses teach ISO CGL, BAP, crime, and surety products. Nevada asks you to map those products to statutory labels:

Outline trap: Some study outlines casually list "Vehicle, Liability, Theft/Burglary, Surety" next to a single cite. On the real Code, Vehicle / Liability / Burglary and theft are casualty under 681A.020, while Surety is defined in 681A.070. Cite both correctly.

NRS 681A.020 — "Casualty Insurance" Defined

NRS 681A.020(1) states that casualty insurance includes a long enumerated list. For the Nevada P&C exam, master these high-frequency paragraphs first:

(a) Vehicle Insurance

Insurance against loss of or damage to land vehicles, aircraft, or draft/riding animals (and property in/on them), from any hazard, plus loss, liability, or expense from ownership, maintenance, or use. It may also include accidental injury coverage for natural persons (including the named insured) while in, entering, alighting from, adjusting, repairing, cranking, or struck by the vehicle/aircraft/animal when issued as an incidental part of the vehicle insurance.

Producer hook: Personal auto and commercial auto liability/physical damage live here as a casualty kind, even though Nevada's 25/50/20 financial responsibility rules sit in Chapter 485.

(b) Liability Insurance

Insurance against legal liability for death, injury, or disability of any human being, or for damage to property, including professional negligence liability, plus incidental medical/hospital/disability/funeral benefits when issued with liability insurance.

Producer hook: CGL, professional liability, and personal liability umbrellas are casualty—liability, not "property" under 681A.060.

(c) Workers' Compensation and Employer's Liability

Insurance of employers' obligations for employee death, disablement, or injury under law. This is why Nevada WC placements sit in the casualty family even though benefits are administered under chapters 616A–616D (covered in the next section).

(d) Burglary and Theft

Insurance against loss or damage by burglary, theft, larceny, robbery, forgery, fraud, vandalism, malicious mischief, confiscation, wrongful conversion/disposal/concealment, or attempts at any of those. It may include supplemental medical/funeral expense from injury during a burglary/robbery/theft by another, and coverage for money, securities, and valuable papers from any cause.

Producer hook: Commercial crime and related theft forms are casualty—burglary and theft, not inland marine by default (though 681A.010(2) allows some coverages to fit more than one kind).

Other Casualty Paragraphs (Know They Exist)

681A.020 also lists personal property floater, glass, boiler and machinery, leakage/fire-extinguishing equipment, credit and mortgage guaranty, elevator, congenital defects, livestock, entertainments, legal expenses, and miscellaneous coverages (including certain home-protection products). You need not memorize every sentence, but you must recognize that casualty is broader than "auto + GL."

681A.020(2) clarifies that incidental medical/AD&D benefits attached to vehicle, liability, burglary, boiler, or elevator insurance are treated as that same casualty kind, not as life/health insurance under the Code.

NRS 681A.070 — "Surety Insurance" Defined

Surety is not a subsection of 681A.020. It has its own definition:

NRS 681A.070 provides that surety insurance includes:

1. Fidelity insurance — guaranteeing the fidelity of persons in public or private trust (employee dishonesty / bond territory).
2. Insurance guaranteeing performance of contracts (other than insurance policies) and guaranteeing/executing bonds, undertakings, and contracts of suretyship.
3. Certain bankers'/brokers' indemnity for loss of valuables, money, and papers (including armored-car/messenger situations), plus specified premises burglary/robbery/theft damage—narrow financial-institution surety wording.
4. Financial guaranty insurance — guaranteeing payment of principal and interest on a security if the issuer defaults (distinct from subsection 3 coverages).

Exam contrast: A performance bond for a Las Vegas tenant improvement is surety (681A.070). A commercial crime policy covering employee theft at the same contractor may be casualty—burglary and theft (681A.020(d)) or fidelity under surety depending on product design—read the question's product description and cite the matching kind.

681A.090 reminds multiple-line insurers they may combine kinds defined in 681A.020, .030, .050, .060, .070, and .080 (casualty, health, marine, property, surety, title)—another reason the exam expects you to keep the labels straight.

NRS Chapter 691B — Sureties in Operation

Once an insurer is authorized to write surety, Chapter 691B supplies contract-power rules used on public works, license bonds, court bonds, and private performance/payment bonds.

NRS 691B.010 — Subject to Chapter 687B

All contracts of surety insurance covering subjects located or to be performed in Nevada are subject to the applicable provisions of chapter 687B (the insurance contract) and other applicable Code provisions. Surety bonds are not "outside insurance law" merely because they look like construction documents.

NRS 691B.020 — Power to Execute; Co-Surety Limits; Legal Sufficiency

Subsection 1: Whenever a bond, undertaking, recognizance, guaranty, or other obligation may be required or allowed—or whenever performance/forbearance may be secured—an insurer authorized in Nevada to transact surety insurance may execute it. Authorized surety insurers are empowered to execute all such instruments.

Subsection 2 (co-surety liability may be limited): If two or more such insurers execute the instrument, each may limit its liability to an amount less than the aggregate penalty and may also limit liability to a pro rata part of any and all losses under the instrument. This is the statutory green light for co-surety sharing on large Clark County public-works bonds.

Subsection 3: Execution by an officer, attorney-in-fact, or other authorized representative is a full compliance with laws requiring sureties to be residents, householders, freeholders, or to possess other personal qualifications. Corporate sureties replace the old personal surety formalities.

NRS 691B.030 — Estoppel to Deny Power to Execute

Any insurer that executes a surety contract as surety is estopped, in any proceeding to enforce the liability it assumed, to deny its power to execute that contract or assume that liability. Once the bond is signed, the carrier cannot later argue "we lacked authority" to escape payment.

Worked Scenarios

Scenario A — Classifying the Product (Sparks Warehouse)

A Sparks distributor wants (1) auto liability for delivery vans, (2) CGL for premises operations, (3) employee theft coverage, and (4) a liquor-license bond for a tasting room.

• Vans and CGL → casualty under 681A.020 (Vehicle and Liability).
• Employee theft may be written as casualty—burglary and theft or as fidelity/surety depending on form; the outline still expects you to know both 681A.020(d) and 681A.070(1) exist.
• Liquor-license bond → surety under 681A.070, executed under 691B.020 by an authorized surety, and governed by 687B via 691B.010.

Scenario B — Co-Surety Cap (Clark County Public Works)

Two authorized sureties co-execute a $2 million performance bond. Under 691B.020(2), each may limit its share (for example, $1 million each, or another contractual pro rata formula) rather than each guaranteeing the full $2 million penalty. If one surety later claims it never had authority to write Nevada surety after signing, 691B.030 estops that defense in an enforcement action.

Producer Checklist

1. When an exam question asks "which kind of insurance," map Vehicle / Liability / Burglary-theft / WC to 681A.020 and bonds/fidelity/financial guaranty to 681A.070.
2. Confirm the carrier's certificate of authority includes surety before soliciting license, permit, or contract bonds.
3. On large bonds, expect co-surety language limiting each carrier below the full penalty per 691B.020(2).
4. Remember 691B.010 pulls surety contracts into 687B consumer/contract rules.
5. Never advise a surety that "we can deny we had power to sign" after execution—691B.030 closes that door.

Exam Traps

1. Citing 681A.070 for Vehicle or Liability definitions—those are 681A.020(a)/(b).
2. Treating surety bonds as pure construction documents immune from the Insurance Code—691B.010 applies 687B.
3. Assuming co-sureties are always jointly liable for the full penalty—691B.020(2) expressly allows limited and pro rata liability.
4. Confusing 681A.020(c) workers compensation (kind of casualty insurance) with the industrial-insurance benefit chapters 616A–616D (how Nevada runs the system).
5. Forgetting estoppel under 691B.030 after a surety executes a bond.

Master the split: 681A.020 = casualty kinds (Vehicle, Liability, Burglary/theft, WC/EL, …), 681A.070 = surety kinds, 691B = how sureties execute, share, and are estopped. That triad satisfies the Nevada casualty-contract and surety leaves on the Pearson VUE outline.