Nelson C. Barry Automobile Accidents Law Blog on Lawyers.com

YES! YES! YES!

Uninsured motorist coverage  and underinsured motorist coverage come together; i.e. they are not two separate "extras" that are  offered by your auto  insurance carrier. Underinsured motorist coverage is you buying insurance for the guy who does not have insurance when some day in  the future he hits you. So this  means you can go up against  your own insurance carrier and get everything that you could get from the insurance carrier for  the guy who hit you if he did have coverage. This  includes reimbursement for  your medical  bills, your lost wages  (even if  you used sick leave and/or vacation time) and  money for your pain and suffering. When you buy your uninsured morotist insurance, you  pick  the limit of how much your company will  pay you if you are hit by an uninsured motorist. You can get a $15/30k policy, a $25/50k policy, a $50/100k policy, a  $300/500k policy etc. Therefore, if you get hit by an uninsured motorist (and some people claim that 1/3 of  all drivers are uninsured and given the tough financial times, I  would not be surprised the percentage is closer to 40%!) you can collect from your insurance carrier. No one ever thinks they will  get in an accident, much less one caused by an uninsured motorist but when they do, boy oh boy, are they glad they have  UM  coverage. 

 

Underinsured motorist coverage (UIM) comes automatically with your uninsured motorist coverage in most cases. It is all  about  your insurance company paying you if you get in and accident and it  is the other person's fault but it  turns out that the other side is  underinsured; namely they caused more damage than their insurance can cover. So if someone hits you and causes $50,000  in damages ($10,000 to your car, $15,000 in medical bills, $5,000  in income loss and the going rate for your pain and  suffering is $20,000 - all that adds up to  $50,000) and it turns out that they only have $15k in insurance (the minimum required in California) your company will pay you up to the limit of your underinsured motorist coverage but your company gets a credit for the amount you received from the other guy's insurance company.  So if you had $25k in UIM coverage and you got the other guy's maximum of $15k, then your company (assuming your  company agrees that your case is worth more than your limit of $25k) will pay you $10k more to bring  you up to the amount that you decided you wanted to be paid if you were hit by a UM  or UIM driver. If you bought a $50k UIM policy, and  everything else was the same as I  mentioned above (i.e. your case  was  worth $50k), your  company would get a credit for the $15k you got from the other guy's company and they would add on $35k more to bring you up to $50k that you received  for  your accident.  I have $300k  in UM/UIM coverage  because it is common for cases to exceed $100k and often even exceed $500,000. If you make close to (or more)  than $100k/year  and  an accident caused  you to be off work for 2 or 3 years, the total value of your case could well  exceed $1 million! So if you want to be secure  in the knowledge that  no matter  who  hits you  (an uninsured or even an underinsured driver), you will be covered, then a decent amount of UM/UIM coverage. This kind of coverage is  often most economical to buy if you use a combination of a  primary insurance policy and a umbrella coverage. I have $300k in UM/UIM coverage that is  taken up to $2 million by my umbrella policy.

 

Next week, COLLISION COVERAGE! What is it and  how does it work?