A Lawyer’s Guide to Purchasing Automobile Insurance – Part Four – Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage
Having already addressed issues involving choosing Liability Coverage and First Party Coverage, as well as making the Full Tort or Linited Tort election, I will now discuss my last automobile insurance topic in this four part series: Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage.
Since there are countless vehicles traveling the Pennsylvania roads every day with either no Liability Coverage or minimal Liablity Coverage, it is important for you to consider purchasing substantial Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage.
In the event that you are the victim of an accident caused by a driver with little or no insurance, it is likely that you will need to turn to your own automobile insurance policy to get fair compensation for your injuries and damages. In such situations, you are protected only if you have purchased a sufficient amount of Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage.
Uninsured Motorist Coverage (UM) provides protection for an accident caused by a driver of a vehicle who has no insurance or who leaves the scene of an accident and cannot be located – a hit-and-run driver. Underinsured Motorist Coverage (UIM) provides protection for an accident caused by a driver of a vehicle who has Liability Coverage, but not enough coverage to pay for the damages resulting from the accident, such as medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering.
In Pennsylvania, all automobile insurance companies must offer both UM and UIM coverage and must obtain signed waivers if UM or UIM coverage is rejected by someone purchasing insurance. This is coverage on your own policy that you pay for so that you and the memebers of your family who live with you will be protected in the event that you are injured by an irresponsible driver who has littele or no insurance. Since UM/UIM coverage is very important to have to protect you from drivers with little or no insurance, it is advisable to carry at least $100,000 of UM/UIM coverage, if not more.
In addition to choosing the amount of UM/UIM coverage, you are also given the option to “stack” your coverage if you insure more than one vehicle on your policy. “Stacking” multiplies your coverage amount by the number of vehicles insured on the policy. For example, if you stack $100,000 of coverage on a policy covering three vehicles, you will have $300,000 of coverage available if you are the victim of an accident caused by an uninsured or underinsured driver ($100,000 X 3 vehilcles = $300,000 of UM/UIM Coverage). Because stacking coverage is relatively inexpensive, it is a good idea to consider it for multi-vehicle policies.
In the event that you or a relative who lives with you is involved in an accident caused by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver, you are able to seek compensation for your damages (medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering) from your own UM coverage. Your recovery can be up to the amount of your UM coverage.
In addition, if you or a resident relative is injured by a driver who has insurance, but not enough to cover all of the damages, you can file a claim for UIM coverage with your own insurance company to make up the difference between the responsible party’s insurance coverage and your damages. For example, if the responsible driver had $15,000 and your damages were $100,000, you could make a UIM claim for $85,000 to make up the difference. Again, however, your own insurance company is only required to pay up to the limits of your UIM coverage.
To be adequately covered in the event of an accident, I strongly recommend that you consider purchasing UM/UIM Coverage in substantial amounts and that you stack coverage if you have a multi-vehicle policy.
Tim Rayne, Esquire – MacElree Harvey, Ltd. 211 E. State Street, Kennett Square, PA 19348 (610) 840-0124 trayne@macelree.com
Tags: automobile insurance, car accident, car crash, car insurance, Pennsylania law, Underinsured, Unisured
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.