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Uninsured vs. Under Insured Auto Accident Coverage – Car Accident Lawyer – Harry Rothenberg, Esq.
Hi I’m Harry Rothenberg from The Rothenberg Law Firm – InjuryLawyer.com
Whenever I get a phone call from someone who’s been injured in a car crash I always ask the caller for a copy of his or her own insurance policy.
Sometimes people say to me; “Why do you need my insurance policy? It was the other guy’s fault.” To explain, here’s one example:
Imagine you were injured and the car that hit you keeps going.
It’s a hit and run. That person is never caught, so there isn’t going to be any insurance coverage for the other guy. Or when the other car is uninsured. Or the other car is stolen.
In those instances, there won’t be any coverage to pursue.
You can still hire us because we can bring an action against your own insurance carrier under the uninsured motorist provision in your policy-up to whatever limit you’ve chosen.
For example, imagine that you have chosen a policy that has $100,000 limit for bodily injury to protect strangers and passengers in your car, and also has a $100,000 in uninsured motorist coverage.
In that example you can bring a claim against your carrier for up to $100,000.
Example two: Imagine you are injured seriously in a car crash but this time, the other person does have coverage.
Imagine they only have twenty-five thousand dollars in coverage.
You can hire us. We can get that $25,000 and then we get also bring a claim against your insurance carrier up to the limits of your under-insured motorist coverage.
So again in this example, say you have $100,000 for your underinsured motorist coverage. We can bring a claim against your carrier up to that amount.
Take a few moments when you get a chance and look at your insurance policy carefully. Look at what your bodily injury limits are. That’s the amount up to which you are protecting strangers. If your limits are a $100,000 and you hit somebody with a passenger in your car and you were at fault when the crash happened, they can come after you against your carrier up to $100,000.
Now look at the limits of your uninsured underinsured motorist coverage. That should match.
That should also be a $100,000 if you’ve got a $100,000 bodily injury policy. You can’t over protect yourself. You can’t buy more
uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage than bodily injury coverage. But I want you to ask yourself. If you were given the choice: do you want to protect yourself and your loved ones through your uninsured under-insured coverage as much as you’re protecting strangers or less than you are protecting strangers? Of course the answer is as much. So if for example you have $250,000 of bodily injury coverage make sure you also have two $250,000 uninsured underinsured motorist coverage.
If those limits don’t match for your bodily injury and uninsured/underinsured coverage, then fire your broker.
Or call Flo at Progressive of The Gecko at GEICO and say I want matching limits. Just as important, make sure to buy as much coverage you can afford.
Ask your broker or ask your carrier how much will it cost for me to raise my coverage from say $25,000 to $50,000, $100,000, or $200,000, $300,000, or even $500,000 worth of bodily injury coverage protecting strangers and passengers; and matching
$500,000 limits for uninsured underinsured motorist coverage protecting you, and protecting your loved ones. It’s worth every extra penny.
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