The Importance of Uninsured Motorist Coverage

In our personal injury practice we are oftentimes astounded at the lack of understanding by the public of the important nature of uninsured motorist coverage. Many people do not know what uninsured motorist coverage is. Regrettably, many people learn what it is too late to benefit from such important insurance coverage.
In order to get license tags to lawfully operate a vehicle in Georgia, the motorist must have a minimum of $25,000.00 in liability insurance coverage per person, $50,000.00 per accident. What this means is that if a motorist runs a stop sign and injures an individual, they must have liability insurance coverage that will pay a minimum of $25,000.00 in damages to the injured individual. As anyone knows with today’s rising medical costs, however, if anyone is seriously injured, $25,000.00 will not be adequate to compensate the injured individual much less pay medical expenses. Thus, an uninsured motorist can even include those who are underinsured as the term uninsured motorist under Georgia law includes both motorists who have no insurance coverage whatsoever, that being their insurance policies have lapsed or have been cancelled or never procured to begin with and those who have minimal coverage but have far less coverage than is needed for damages caused by their negligent acts..
Uninsured motorist coverage applies to a situation where someone is injured by an at fault motorist who either has no insurance at all or has minimal insurance coverage which is insufficient to address the damages caused by the negligent acts. If a drunk driver is illegally driving with no insurance and seriously injures someone, there is no insurance through the drunk driver and there will be no insurance for the injured individual unless they were prudent enough to purchase uninsured motorist coverage to protect themselves. Uninsured motorist coverage protects the injured individual through their own policy as uninsured motorist coverage is a part of everyone’s policy should they choose to purchase it. While it is not required to be covered as part of one’s policy, under Georgia law it is very important that if the family’s budget can afford it, that optional uninsured motorist coverage should be purchased.
In a hypothetical case where a serious injury occurs and someone, say loses their leg, obviously, the medical expenses in such a serious case could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lost wages could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Life altering serious injuries could result and far reaching financial implications, not to mention significant pain and suffering for the innocent victim. If the injured individual had a $1 million uninsured motorist policy, even if the person causing the limb amputation had no insurance or only had the minimum limits required by law, the injured individual could still recover up to $1 million in benefits through their own uninsured motorist coverage. Thus, whether uninsured motorist coverage be purchased at the rate of $50,000.00, $100,000.00, $250,000.00 or more the fact remains that such coverage can be very, very important for the individual who is seriously injured through the negligent acts of a third party such as the hypothetical drunk driver.
We would encourage all readers of this blog to meet with their insurance agents and go over the available costs attendant to procuring uninsured motorist coverage under their own insurance policies. It is very important that such coverage exists when serious injuries occur. Regrettably, we have seen far too many cases, including those involving wrongful death cases, where there is little or no insurance available through the insurance coverage for the at fault person and regrettably our client had no uninsured motorist coverage. We hope to see fewer of these cases in the future.