Auto Insurance-Coverage every driver should have-Uninsured & Underinsured Motorist Coverage
If you don’t know about uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, you need to.
Uninsured motorist coverage covers you when you are injured as a result of a driver with no insurance, a hit and run driver or a driver of a stolen car. Uninsured motorist coverage is coverage provided by your own insurance company. The cost of this coverage is usually nominal.
Underinsured motorist coverage allows you to recover from your own insurance company, money to pay for damages incurred from an at-fault driver who does not have enough insurance to cover your damages. This is far too common a situation today and not enough people know that this type of coverage is essential.
For example, if someone causes an accident causing you injury and only has the state mandated minimum of $20,000 in coverage, if you are harmed in excess of $20,000 you are probably out of luck. This is despite the fact that you have adequate insurance yourself!
With an underinsured policy (which you also get from your own insurance provider) you first are entitled to the full amount of the other person’s coverage and then on top of that, whatever your underinsured policy amount is. This is an insurance policy that makes sure that you are covered no matter what type of insurance the other person who caused the accident may have.
A brief discussion of standards is appropriate. In order to recover your uninsured motorist coverage, you must prove that the other driver was not insured AND that the accident was their fault. To recover your underinsured motorist coverage you must take the full amount of the other person’s coverage that they do have. Then you are entitled to your own policy.
The important point to take away from this is that uninsured and underinsured policies are vital. Hopefully you will never need to use either of these policies, but if you are in an accident with an uninsured or someone who has only $20,000 in coverage YOU WILL NEED THIS. This is the only way to ensure that you will be covered for personal injuries caused by someone else in an auto accident. ASK YOUR INSURANCE AGENT ABOUT THIS TODAY!
