Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage: Don’t Leave Home Without It

A typical case we see far too often is that where the motorist who caused the damage to our client had the minimum limits of Georgia law which provides only $25,000.00 in liability insurance coverage. Typically such a driver has little or no personal assets to satisfy an excess judgment against them. In those cases where our client’s damages (medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering) clearly exceed the $25,000.00 in available limits, the best chance for an excess recovery is to procure uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage through one’s own insurance carrier. But one big problem we see is that most clients do not understand what uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage is all about nor do they typically have such coverage under their policies in amounts that will help.
Uninsured or underinsured coverage only kicks in if it exceeds the amount of the liability policy limits of the at fault driver. If the at fault driver has $25,000.00 in coverage (and no real personal assets to satisfy a judgment against them personally) and the client has $25,000.00 in bills, the client will not get anything more than the $25,000.00 unless he or she has a policy providing a uninsured coverage in amounts in excess of $25,000.00. In the hypothetical case where the client has $50,000.00 in coverage, they could obtain $25,000.00 in compensation from the at fault driver’s policy and an additional $25,000.00 in coverage from their own policy.
We recommend to our clients that they purchase as much underinsured coverage as they can afford. It could make a world of difference to a client if they suffered a true serious injury. Like most insurance, this type of insurance protects the client most when they need it. As my Father often has said to me “it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”