A woman named Maria sustained injuries in an auto accident and hired a car injury lawyer. Trouble was, the other driver a man named Richard had no car insurance. Presumably, Richard didn’t have much in the way of assets either.
Additionally, when Maria purchased auto insurance, she bought the cheapest policy that she could. It’s called a special automobile insurance policy. It doesn’t provide any coverage against uninsured motorists like Richard.
Therefore, it appeared that there was no one to compensate Maria for her injuries.
However, Maria’s car injury lawyer had a good idea. You see, Maria was not behind the wheel of her own car. Rather, she drove someone else’s car. That car owner purchased a better car insurance policy than Maria did. A policy that provided uninsured and underinsured motorist UM/UIM coverage of $50,000 per person, up to $100,000 per accident.
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CAR INJURY LAWYER DEMANDS UM/UIM BENEFITS
Thus, the car injury lawyer demanded that the car owner’s insurance company compensate Maria for her injuries. But the insurer tried to escape liability based on certain arcane technical language in the car owner’s policy.
So Maria’s car injury lawyer sued the car owner’s insurance company. The judge ruled for Maria. The insurance company had to cover her.
Accordingly, the insurance company appealed to a higher court. Nonetheless, the trial judge’s ruling stood. The appeals judges agreed that Maria should get coverage.
However, I must emphasize how lucky Maria was. Her victory turned on the highly technical language of the relevant insurance policies. There have been other victims like Maria who have not been so lucky. The judges in those cases, also based on hyper-technical wording in insurance policies, denied the victims any coverage.
The moral is clear. Don’t risk losing your right to compensation if you have an accident. Buy as much UM/UIM insurance as you can afford. I recommend at least $250,000 worth. $500,000 is even better. You never know when you may need it.
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