Iowa Code » Chapter 321A — MOTOR VEHICLE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Iowa Code

Iowa Code § 321A.34 (2026)

Self-insurers

✓ current as of July 2026
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1. a. Any person in whose name more than twenty-five motor vehicles are registered may qualify as a self-insurer by obtaining a certificate of self-insurance issued by the department as provided in paragraph “b”.

b. The department may, upon the application of such a person, issue a certificate of self-insurance if the department is satisfied that the person has and will continue to have the ability to pay judgments obtained against the person for damages arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of any vehicle owned by the person. A person issued a certificate of self-insurance pursuant to this subsection shall maintain a financial liability coverage card as provided in section 321.20B, subsection 2, paragraph “b”, subparagraph (1).

2. a. Any association of individual members that is a legal entity with the power to sue and be sued in its own name and which is composed of individual members in whose names a total of more than twenty-five motor vehicles are registered, may qualify as a self-insurer by obtaining a certificate of insurance issued by the department as provided in paragraph “b”.

b. The department may, upon the application of such an association, issue a certificate of self-insurance if the department is satisfied that the association has and will continue to have the ability to pay judgments obtained against the association or against an individual member of the association for damages arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of any vehicle owned by an individual member of the association. An association issued a certificate of self-insurance pursuant to this paragraph shall maintain a financial liability coverage card as provided in section 321.20B, subsection 2, paragraph “b”, subparagraph (2).

3. Upon not less than five days’ notice and a hearing pursuant to the notice, the department may upon reasonable grounds cancel a certificate of self-insurance. Failure to pay a judgment for damages arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of any vehicle owned by the self-insurer within thirty days after the judgment becomes final constitutes a reasonable ground for the cancellation of a certificate of self-insurance. Upon the cancellation of a certificate of self-insurance, the person who was issued the certificate shall surrender to the director all self-insurance cards issued to the person. [C50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §321A.34] 92 Acts, ch 1175, §43; 97 Acts, ch 139, §11, 17; 2007 Acts, ch 215, §108 Referred to in §321.1, 321.20B, 321A.5, 321A.26\n\n 321A.35 Reserved.\n\nTue Dec 09 22:16:10 2025 Iowa Code 2026, Chapter 321A (43, 0) 19 MOTOR VEHICLE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, §321A.39 \n

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 1 case, 2005–2005 · leading case: Faeth v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 707 N.W.2d 328 (Iowa 2005).
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Faeth v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 707 N.W.2d 328 (Iowa 2005). · cites it 2× “Iowa Code § 321A.34. For interstate carriers such as Umthun, Iowa authorities accept the determination of federal regulators as to the carrier’s self-insured status pursuant to 49 U.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.