Do you have enough uninsured motorist insurance?

It’s a good idea to take the time to check your insurance policy, or call your insurance agent, to make sure you have enough coverage in case you’re involved in an accident. You certainly don’t want to find out that you don’t have enough coverage after the fact, when it’s too late. As an accident attorney specializing in personal injury, it is not uncommon in my practice to be limited in what I can do for a client and only by insurance coverage issues.

Simply put, I urge you to make sure your uninsured motorist limits match your bodily injury limits. It is in your best interest to do so.

Let’s say, for example, that your policy has bodily injury limits of $100,000 per person. This means that if you caused a collision that resulted in another person being injured, your insurance would pay up to $100,000 for that person’s injuries, depending, of course, on the value of the injured person’s case.

At the same time, with that same policy, let’s say you have limits of $30,000 per person for uninsured motorists. This means that if he was involved in a collision caused by an uninsured motorist, he would be covered for up to only $30,000 through his policy for his personal injuries sustained in the collision.

Think of it this way: Through this example, you are offering more coverage to a person you injured and less coverage to yourself and your passengers through your uninsured motorist limits. The injured person has $100,000, but you only benefit from $30,000 if you and/or your passengers were injured by an uninsured motorist.

Your uninsured motorist limits also cover you when you are involved in a collision caused by a motorist who has insurance, but does not have enough coverage to cover the full value of your claim. If that driver only has bodily injury limits of $30,000 and you only have $30,000 uninsured motorist coverage, there would be nothing else available to you through your policy, because your uninsured motorist limits do not exceed the uninsured motorist limits. advocate. However, if you increased your uninsured motorist limits to match your bodily injury limits of $100,000, then you would have $70,000 more available to you, which is the difference between the defendant’s bodily injury limits and your uninsured motorist limits.

I don’t think the increased coverage costs much more for the value it offers to protect you. In fact, according to a local agent, raising your uninsured motorist limits from $15,000 to $100,000 probably wouldn’t cost more than $60 a year.

It is worth taking a moment to consult with your agent as you consider the value they can offer you if you are ever unlucky enough to be involved in a car accident caused by an uninsured or underinsured driver.