07
Apr
UIM: Under Insured Motorist Coverage - Protect yourself, because no one else will
There is nothing more disheartening for an attorney than discovering that there is inadequate insurance coverage to compensate a client for the injuries that he or she sustained in an accident. Even harder, is the task of informing a client that was severely injured about this harsh reality.
Recently, I represented a client whom sustained significant injuries in an automobile accident, only to discover that there was woefully insufficient insurance coverage to compensate this individual. This client was in an automobile accident with another driver who was insured with a limited split limit policy of $15,000/$30,000. What that meant is that the defendant only had $15,000 in insurance coverage per person, per accident. If there were multiple parties injured, there would have been a total of $30,000 that would have had to be divided among the injured parties.
This would not have presented a problem if the client would have had sufficient Underinsured Motorist Coverage (UIM), under her own insurance policy. Hypothetically, if the client would have had $100,000 in UIM coverage, we would have been able to obtain another $85,000 under her own insurance policy, which constitutes the difference between the third party and first party insurance coverage. However, my client’s policy had limited UIM coverage of $25,000. Thus, there was only an additional $10,000 of insurance coverage that was available beyond the $15,000 underlying policy.
The most difficult part of all, was informing my client, that had to undergo multiple surgeries due to the injuries she sustained, that there was barely any insurance coverage to compensate her. When she asked how this could be, she was very upset to learn that she could have protected herself under her own insurance policy with adequate UIM coverage.
Thus, when renewing your automobile insurance policy, make sure that you have adequate underinsured motorist coverage to protect yourself and your family. If you do not protect yourself and your loved ones, then who will?
[…] Gregg A. Williams had a pretty good blog post. Definitely worth your time. Here is a small excerpt:Thus, when renewing your automobile insurance policy, make sure that you have adequate underinsured motorist coverage to protect yourself and your family. If you do not protect yourself and your loved ones, then who will? […]
April 7th, 2008 at 5:19 pm