Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Insurance

As I am in my forties and am known as middle aged, I keep on asking myself about the most important things in my life. I'm a lucky person because I have good health, a good job, financial stability, and many dear friends. Of foremost importance, however, is my family. I treasure them most in this world and will do anything to protect their futures. One way of caring for my family is to make arrangements for their safety and finances in case of accidents. A way that I show my family how much I care for them is by purchasing underinsured motorist insurance.

California law calls for all operators of a car to have liability insurance. In reality there are many drivers that don't carry any insurance at all. Your uninsured motorist policy will pay you for your personal injuries, up to your policy limits, if you are unfortunate enough to be injured by an uninsured motorist. Having uninsured motorist insurance coverage is a no-brainer.

But what happens when the at-fault driver has some liability insurance, but not enough to pay for all of your losses? Uninsured motorist insurance is crucial to your family's protection in circumstances such as these.

Underinsured motorist insurance gives you and your family coverage when the at-fault driver’s liability insurance is not sufficient to cover your losses. (Underinsured motorist coverage is built-in to your uninsured motorist coverage at no additional cost!) This means that you will receive money from your own insurance company when the at-fault driver's liability insurance runs out. It is important to understand that there are two significant catches.

The first catch is that your underinsured motorist coverage must be more than what the at- fault driver carries in liability insurance. As an illustration, if you carry $15,000 of uninsured motorist insurance and the driver at-fault carries $15,000 of liability insurance, the maximum that you can receive is $15,000 regardless of the extent of your injuries. The end result is that you can not use your underinsured motorist coverage. On the other hand, if you have $100,000 of underinsured motorist benefits and the other driver only has $15,000 of liability insurance, you will be able to receive up to $100,000 in benefits. To fully protect your family, you’ll need to purchase substantial limits of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage.

The next catch is that most insurance companies will not allow your uninsured motorist coverage to exceed your liability coverage. So you might be buying excess liability insurance.

It might surprise you, but the added cost for liability and uninsured/underinsured coverage is very minimal. The largest part of your premium is utilized in purchasing the lower policy limit. When you buy more insurance, it actually becomes less expensive.

As demonstrated, a substantial uninsured/underinsured motorist policy is necessary to protect your family. Not having it would be like taking the roof off of your home – you’d have very little protection. And everybody knows it is important to have a strong roof over your head.

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Barry Edzant, a California lemon law attorney, knows the importance of underinsured motorist insurance. People get uninsured motorist protection, but don’t realize the price for not having underinsured motorist protection. So he tells his clients to get underinsured motorist coverage before they need a California dog bite attorneys.

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