Does Arkansas Allow UM/UIM Stacking? The Statutes and the Cases

By the FigureMyTax Editorial Team · How we calculate

Not by statute, and not against a clear policy clause. The Arkansas Supreme Court has enforced anti-stacking and other-insurance language in UIM policies, and has noted that the legislature has not amended the statutes to permit stacking.

What the statutes say

Ark. Code 23-89-209 requires that insureds have the opportunity to buy UIM coverage, which may be rejected in writing. It lets you recover damages you are legally entitled to whenever the other driver's liability limits are less than your damages, requires UIM at least equal to the minimum limits in Ark. Code 27-19-605, and says UIM coverage is not reduced by the tortfeasor's coverage except to the extent you would receive more than your damages. The statute is silent on stacking.

Couch v. Farmers (2008)

In Couch v. Farmers Insurance Co., the claimant argued the "other insurance" clause conflicted with section 23-89-209 and that Heiss v. Aetna (1971) required stacking. The Court disagreed on each point: it found no ambiguity in the policies, held that nothing in the statute precludes a prohibition on stacking policies, and distinguished Heiss, which involved a deduction of medical payments from UM limits.

Public policy does not save stacking

The Court also refused to void the clause as against public policy, relying on its earlier decisions in Clampit (1992), Chamberlin (2001) and Harasyn (2002): unless the legislature specifically prohibits exclusions, courts will not void them, and an exclusion cannot offend public policy when an insured can opt out of UIM entirely. In Chamberlin, the Court observed that the legislature has not amended the governing statutes to permit stacking despite knowing the courts' decisions.

What we could not confirm

We did not find a verified Arkansas decision that stacks coverage where a policy is silent, or on stacking uninsured motorist (as opposed to underinsured) coverage. A summary of Arkansas UIM law by Justia's Arkansas opinion summaries also reports that insureds must exhaust all tortfeasors' liability policies before UIM pays. The safe approach is to read your policy and ask your insurer to state its position in writing.

How to use this

Compare the two outcomes in the Arkansas UM/UIM stacking calculator, start with the plain-English stacked versus unstacked explainer if the terms are new, and read how UM, UIM, rejection and exhaustion work.

This is general information, not legal advice, and the state comparisons above are illustrative, not an exhaustive survey. Confirm how Arkansas's rules apply to your specific case with a licensed Arkansas attorney.