If I was a passenger in Nebraska, am I suing my friend or family member by making an injury claim?

No. A passenger injury claim is presented to and paid by the driver’s automobile liability insurer, which Nebraska requires every policy to carry at $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident at minimum. Most claims resolve without a lawsuit, and where one is filed the insurer defends the driver and pays any judgment within the policy limits.

Can a spouse or child living in the same household recover from the driver’s auto insurance in Nebraska?

Yes. Neb. Rev. Stat. 60-310 provides that an automobile liability policy shall not exclude, limit, reduce or otherwise alter liability coverage solely because the injured person is the named insured or resides in the named insured’s household. In Shelter Mutual Insurance Co. v. Freudenburg (2020) the Nebraska Supreme Court held that partial household exclusions reducing coverage to minimum limits are void as well.

Does it matter which driver was at fault when I was a passenger?

Not to the passenger’s right to recover. A passenger may claim against the liability insurer of every at-fault driver, and the drivers’ insurers allocate fault between themselves. Under Nebraska’s comparative fault rules a passenger’s own share of fault is usually zero.

Can a passenger use the underinsured motorist coverage on the car they were riding in against that car’s own driver?

Generally no. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 44-6407 a motor vehicle insured under the liability coverage of the same policy is not an uninsured or underinsured motor vehicle for that policy. The passenger’s own separate policy or a resident relative’s policy may provide underinsured motorist coverage instead.

Can a passenger recover if they knew the driver had been drinking?

Insurers argue that a passenger who knowingly rode with an impaired driver shares fault. Under Nebraska’s comparative fault statute a recovery is reduced by the passenger’s percentage of fault and barred only if that percentage reaches 50 percent, so the claim depends on what the passenger knew and what alternatives existed.

Does Nebraska’s guest statute prevent a family member from recovering against a relative’s driving?

No. Nebraska’s guest statute, Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-21,237, was repealed by Laws 2010, LB 216. A relative riding as a guest now recovers on proof of ordinary negligence like any other passenger.

Passenger Injury Claims in Nebraska

The hardest conversation I have with injured passengers is not about medicine or money. It is about a name. The driver was a brother, a best friend, a boyfriend, a mother — and the injured person would rather absorb a $60,000 hospital bill than “sue” someone they love. I understand the instinct completely, and I want to walk through why it rests on a misunderstanding of how a Nebraska passenger claim actually works. The claim is against a policy, not a person. Nebraska law says the driver’s insurer cannot turn the claim away because you are family. And the alternative to making the claim is not sparing your loved one anything; it is quietly paying, out of your own life, for a loss their premiums were bought to cover.

Who the Claim Is Really Against

When a passenger is hurt because the driver of the car they were in was negligent — ran a light, followed too closely, looked at a phone, took a curve too fast — the passenger has a claim for their injuries against that driver. In every practical sense, though, the claim is presented to, negotiated with, and paid by the driver’s automobile liability insurer. Nebraska requires every policy to carry at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash in liability coverage, and that coverage exists for exactly one purpose: to pay the people the insured driver injures. Your friend or family member does not write a check. Their rates may or may not change; their assets are not on the table in any ordinary case; and the insurance company, not your relative, is the party sitting across from me. When another driver caused the crash instead, the claim is against that driver’s insurer, and your own driver is simply a witness — often the most important one.

I say this plainly to every passenger client and, when they want me to, to the driver as well: the premium was paid so that this claim could be made. Declining to make it does not protect the driver. It transfers the cost of the driver’s mistake to the injured person, which is the one outcome the policy was designed to prevent.

Nebraska Forbids the “Household Exclusion”

For decades, insurers in many states wrote a clause into auto policies excluding coverage for injuries to the policyholder’s own family members living in the same household — the “household exclusion.” A wife injured by her husband’s driving, or a teenager injured by a parent’s, would find the liability coverage simply did not apply to them. Nebraska has closed that door by statute. Section 60-310 of the Nebraska statutes provides that an automobile liability policy “shall not exclude, limit, reduce, or otherwise alter liability coverage under the policy solely because the injured person making a claim is the named insured in the policy or residing in the household with the named insured.” The Legislature added the words “limit, reduce, or otherwise alter” in 2013 to stop the industry’s fallback of cutting household members down to the state minimum, and in 2020 the Nebraska Supreme Court, in a case involving a Shelter Mutual policy, held that those partial exclusions are void as well: a household member injured by the insured driver is entitled to the full liability limits the policy carries, not a reduced amount.

The practical meaning is significant. A child hurt in a crash caused by a parent, a spouse hurt by a spouse, a resident relative hurt by the family driver — each has the same claim against the family policy that a stranger would have. Insurers do not always volunteer this. Adjusters have told my clients that “family members aren’t covered” years after the statute made that false. If you hear it, it is a reason to call a lawyer, not a reason to give up.

The Passenger’s Advantage on Fault

Passengers occupy a strong position that most of them do not appreciate. In nearly every crash, the passenger did nothing to cause it. Nebraska reduces an injured person’s recovery by their own share of fault and bars recovery at fifty percent, but a passenger’s share is almost always zero. That means that in a two-car collision where each driver blames the other, the passenger does not have to win that argument — the passenger can claim against both drivers’ insurers, and the allocation of fault between the drivers is their problem. In a single-vehicle crash, the driver’s negligence is usually the only question, and the passenger’s injuries speak for themselves. The largest passenger recovery on my results page, $1,275,000, came from a single-vehicle crash in Douglas County.

Insurers do try to shift fault onto passengers in two situations: where the passenger was not wearing a seatbelt, and where the passenger knew the driver had been drinking. Nebraska law makes seatbelt non-use inadmissible on liability and caps its effect at five percent of damages, and the drinking argument depends on facts — what the passenger actually knew, what alternatives existed — that are contested in every case. Neither is a reason not to make the claim; both are reasons to have someone who has handled the argument before.

The Coverages That Stack Up for a Passenger

A passenger frequently has more coverage available than either driver, because several policies respond at once:

The at-fault driver’s liability coverage — whoever caused the crash, whether the driver of your car or another vehicle. Where two drivers share fault, both liability policies are in play.
Medical payments coverage on the car you were in — many policies carry “med-pay” that pays a passenger’s medical bills regardless of fault, and Nebraska law prohibits the insurer from later reducing UM/UIM benefits by what med-pay paid.
Underinsured motorist coverage — when the at-fault driver’s limits are not enough, UIM coverage on the car you occupied is primary and your own household policy may be excess. One important Nebraska limit: a vehicle insured under the liability coverage of the same policy is not an “underinsured motor vehicle” under that policy, so a passenger cannot use the UIM coverage on the family car to top up a claim against the family car’s own driver. The passenger’s own separate policy, or a resident relative’s, may still respond. The underinsured motorist page explains the offset and the thirty-day notice procedure that has to be followed before any limits are accepted.
Uninsured motorist coverage — when the at-fault driver had no insurance or fled, the UM coverage on the car you were in, and then your own, responds.
Health insurance — which pays bills as they come and then asserts a right to reimbursement from the settlement; managing that lien is part of the case.

Determining which policies apply, in which order, and with what limits is the first task in a passenger case, and it frequently changes the value of the claim by a multiple.

Handling the Relationship

This is where the human side comes in, and I have done it enough times to have a method. First, I explain to the passenger — and, if they want, to the driver — what the claim is and is not: a claim against a policy, handled between me and an adjuster, not a lawsuit served on a relative. Most claims resolve without any lawsuit being filed. Second, I keep the driver informed without making them a participant; they will give a statement to their own insurer, which is their obligation under the policy, and that is typically the extent of their involvement. Third, where a lawsuit does become necessary because the insurer will not pay a fair amount, I explain that the driver is a nominal defendant whose defense and any judgment within the limits are the insurer’s responsibility, and that the decision to hold out was the insurer’s, not the driver’s. Families that understand this at the start almost never fracture over it. Families that are kept in the dark sometimes do.

One more piece of candor. There are cases where the driver is not just a loved one but the person the passenger depends on — a spouse, a parent of a minor child. Nebraska’s household-exclusion ban exists precisely for those families, and a claim by a child against a parent’s policy, brought through a guardian, is one of the most protective things a parent can do with a policy they have already paid for.

Several Passengers, One Policy Limit

A detail that changes strategy: liability coverage has two limits, per person and per crash. Nebraska’s minimums are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash, and many drivers carry exactly that. When a car with three injured passengers is hit by a minimum-limits driver, the $50,000 per-crash limit is all that policy will ever pay, no matter how badly each passenger is hurt, and it has to be divided among them. In that situation the passengers’ own UM/UIM coverage — the policy on the car they occupied first, then their household policies — is where the rest of the recovery comes from, and the thirty-day UIM notice procedure has to be handled for each claimant before anyone accepts a share of the limits. Multiple-passenger crashes are the cases where finding every policy matters most, and where a passenger who goes it alone is most likely to accept a fraction of what is available.

Children Hurt as Passengers

Children are passengers by definition, and their claims have two features of their own. A child’s claim is brought by a parent or guardian on the child’s behalf, and when the driver was the parent, Nebraska’s household-exclusion ban is what makes the claim against the family policy possible at all. And settlements of a minor’s injury claim are typically reviewed and approved by a court, with the funds protected for the child rather than paid to the household, which is a safeguard, not an obstacle. I have recovered more than $250,000 for a child hurt as a passenger in a crash where her own father was the driver — exactly the claim the household-exclusion ban exists to protect — and handled the court approval that followed. Parents should expect that process and should not let an insurer’s quick offer bypass it.

The Old Rule That Still Confuses People

Older Nebraskans, and older internet articles, sometimes say a family member cannot recover from a relative’s driving unless the driver was drunk or grossly negligent. That was Nebraska’s guest statute, and it is gone — repealed by the Legislature in 2010. Today a relative riding as a guest proves ordinary negligence, the same as any other passenger. I have written the full history and what it means on the Nebraska guest statute page; the short version is that if an adjuster cites it, they are quoting a law that has not existed for more than fifteen years.

Passengers in Borrowed Cars, Rideshares and Work Vehicles

The rules above assume the driver’s own policy responds. When the driver was in someone else’s car, the owner’s policy is generally primary and the driver’s own coverage may be excess; the borrowed-car page walks through that ordering and the family-purpose and permissive-use rules that make it work. Passengers in an Uber or Lyft are covered by the rideshare company’s commercial policy during a trip — I explain the tiers in the rideshare post. And a passenger riding for work may have a workers’ compensation claim and a third-party claim at the same time.

What to Do If You Were the Passenger

Get medical care and describe the crash accurately, including who was driving. Get the crash report; it will list you as an occupant and identify every driver and insurer. Do not give a recorded statement to any insurer — including the driver’s — about how the crash happened; you are a witness whose account will be used to allocate fault between drivers, and it should be given once, carefully. Do not sign a med-pay or property release that also releases your injury claim. And do not let anyone, including the driver, talk you out of the claim because of who was behind the wheel. The consultation is free, and I will explain the whole picture to both of you if that is what it takes.

If you were hurt riding in someone else’s car anywhere in Nebraska or western Iowa, call (402) 378-9208 or send a message. There is no fee unless I recover for you. The Omaha car accident lawyer page explains how I handle the case from there.

Your Attorney

Frank Younes

Every page on this site is written by Frank Younes, a Nebraska trial attorney with a published record of verdicts and settlements, selection to the National Trial Lawyers Top 100, and a practice that covers every county in Nebraska and Iowa. No case is handed to an associate — the lawyer you read here is the lawyer who works your case.

More about Frank → · Free consultation: (402) 378-9208

Frequently Asked Questions

If I make a claim, am I suing my friend or family member?

You are making a claim against their auto liability policy, handled with their insurer. Most claims resolve without a lawsuit; where one is necessary, the insurer defends and pays within the limits. The driver’s personal assets are not at stake in an ordinary case.

Can a family member living in the same house recover from the driver’s policy?

Yes. Nebraska law prohibits an auto liability policy from excluding, limiting or reducing coverage because the injured person is the named insured or lives in the household, and the Nebraska Supreme Court has held that even partial reductions are void.

Both drivers say the other caused the crash. Does that hurt my claim?

No. As a passenger you can claim against both drivers’ insurers and let them sort out the allocation. Your own share of fault is almost always zero.

Can I use the UIM coverage on the car I was riding in against that car’s driver?

Generally no — a vehicle insured under the same policy’s liability coverage is not an underinsured motor vehicle under that policy. Your own separate policy, or a resident relative’s, may respond instead.

What if the driver was drinking and I knew it?

Insurers will argue it reduces your recovery. Whether it does depends on what you knew and what choices you had, and Nebraska only bars recovery if your share of fault reaches fifty percent. Make the claim and let the facts be examined.