Drivers With No
Insurance and Uninsured Motorist Coverage
Craig Hardegree, Esq.
When you purchase uninsured motorist
coverage, you are basically buying liability coverage for
people who don't bother to buy their own. The basic
concept is straightforward – if you are involved in an
accident which is the fault of someone else and if the
other person does not have liability insurance to cover
your damages, you can turn to your own uninsured motorist
coverage for compensation for your medical bills and other
damages.
The situation becomes more complex when the
other person actually does have liability coverage, but
has it in an amount which is less than your uninsured
motorist coverage. In this situation, the at-fault person
is underinsured as opposed to simply being uninsured.
For example, suppose you are injured in an auto accident
and incur medical bills of $40,000. Suppose further that
the other driver only has the legally-required liability
limits of $25,000. If you don’t have uninsured motorist
coverage, you are out of luck. The most you would get
from the other person’s insurance company would be $25,000
and you would only get that if you were willing to sign a
release agreeing to fully settle all claims – leaving you
stuck with the remaining bills.
However, if you had $100,000 in uninsured
motorist coverage on your own policy, the situation would
be totally different. In this example the other person
would be underinsured in the amount of $75,000
since he has $75,000 less in coverage than you do. In
such a case, after securing a commitment from the other
person’s insurance company for payment of its $25,000, you
would then turn to your own company to negotiate for the
balance of your damages. This doesn’t mean that your
company would just write you a check for $75,000; it
simply means that there would be $75,000 more available.
The concept that you are, in effect,
purchasing insurance for the other driver really sinks in
if you are ever in an accident where you actually have to
use your uninsured motorist coverage. One might think
that since you are dealing with your own company, you
simply present your damages and your company will then
write you a check. Quite to the contrary, when you
present an uninsured motorist claim to your company, your
company becomes “his company” for all practical purposes.
You will have to negotiate with your own company just as
if it were the other person’s company. As odd as it may
seem, if you are unable to reach a settlement and you end
up having to file a suit against the other driver for your
damages, it will be your own company which will
hire the lawyers to fight against you and defend the other
driver. Still, having such coverage is far better than
the alternative which is being stuck with trying to get
your damages paid personally by an uninsured driver.
Usually a person who doesn’t have insurance, doesn’t have
the financial means with which to personally compensate
you for your damages.
Although Georgia’s laws are strict
regarding mandatory insurance, there are still many
situations where a driver may be uninsured. An
increasingly prevalent situation is showing up in
connection with rental cars. While the law requires a
driver to have insurance, the law does not require a
rental company to confirm that coverage. The coverage
which a rental company requires a driver to
purchase usually only provides property damage coverage to
protect the rental company’s vehicle – it does not provide
liability coverage to protect you when the person driving
the rental car causes an accident. If a rental company
derives a substantial amount of its business from drivers
who are in the country with no documentation, it is not
likely to risk losing that business by voluntarily
requiring proof of liability insurance.
If you don’t have uninsured motorist
coverage, you are basically playing Russian roulette; you
are gambling that whoever hits you, will have adequate
liability insurance. By purchasing uninsured motorist
coverage, you remove the gamble because, in effect, you
have purchased insurance for the other person.
If you have been
involved in a car wreck, auto accident, truck collision, motor
vehicle crash or any other personal injury case and you live in
the cities of
Carrollton, Bremen, Bowdon, Villa Rica, Temple, Hiram, Dallas,
Douglasville or in Carroll County or Douglas County or in the
Counties of
Haralson, Paulding or Clayton, please
contact
our Douglasville Personal Injury Law Center for a free consultation
with a personal injury lawyer.
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