Consider this scary and all-too-familiar scenario – you or a family member are hurt by the negligence of another driver. You make a claim with the other driver’s liability insurance carrier, only to find out that they don’t have enough insurance to pay your medical bills or cover your damages. What do you do?
If you wait until the crash occurs, it’s too late. Remember that liability coverage only protects people who you injure if you are at fault for the crash. Liability coverage does not protect you or your family if the other driver is at fault. To protect yourself and your family, you should purchase “Uninsured Motorist Coverage.”
Commonly referred to as “UM or UIM” coverage, this is a type of insurance that protects your family if the at-fault driver doesn’t have any, or doesn’t have enough, liability coverage to pay for all your injuries and damages. Basically, this coverage takes the place of the insurance that the other driver should have purchased but did not.
Because UIM coverage only pays after you have exhausted the at-fault driver’s liability coverage, it is less expensive. However, it can make a huge difference.
For example, Cunningham Bounds recently represented a woman who was hit in a head-on collision at highway speeds by another driver. The at-fault driver only had $25,000 in liability coverage. Our client’s medical bills alone were far more than that. As a result, the at-fault driver’s liability coverage did not come close to paying for all the injuries and damages. Cunningham Bounds helped our client make a claim to her own auto insurance carrier for her UIM coverage. At trial, the jury returned a $6,500,000 verdict. If you have enough UIM coverage, it will pay for the difference between the actual damages and the amount the at-fault driver had in liability coverage.
Most people only have the default UIM coverage, which is often not nearly enough to protect them. Increase this coverage to protect you and your family before a crash occurs.
Cunningham Bounds has the knowledge and skill to guide you through the difficult aftermath of a car accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver. Call (844) 417-0930 for a free consultation.