MFA Mutual Insurance v. Van Driesum

George Rose Smith, Justice.

Arkansas’s no-fault insurance law requires automobile liability policies to include a $5,000 accidental death benefit for the insured and for passengers in an insured car, unless the applicant for the insurance rejects that coverage. Act 138 of 1973; Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 66-4014 to -4021 (Repl. 1980). The question in this case is whether the estate of an insured passenger who was killed while riding in an insured car may recover the $5,000 death benefit not only from the decedent’s own insurer but also from the driver’s insurer. The trial judge, relying upon our…