Uninsured Motorist Coverage in Atlanta, Georgia

Home > Articles > Uninsured Motorist Coverage in Atlanta, Georgia

For most of us, any time someone mentions car insurance, our eyes roll back in our head and our mind drifts to a happier place–which is just about anywhere other than your insurance declarations page. For injury attorneys handling serious car and truck wreck cases, uninsured motorist coverage is not that exciting–but it is very important. Too often, I have seen clients who have been badly injured and who, unfortunately, face the prospect of recovering very little compensation for medical bills and lost wages because the insurance coverage for the car wreck is limited.

An example should illustrate the point. Sally is driving home from the store and proceeds through a green light. Jim, coming from Sally’s left, runs the red light and T-bone’s Sally’s car. Sally suffers a broken leg, a herniated disc, and facial scarring, among other injuries. There is little question that Jim is at fault. Sally retains an attorney and the attorney requests Jim’s insurance information–he is the at-fault driver after all. Jim has a $25,000/$50,000 policy through Allstate. What does that mean? The insurance limits (the most the insurance company has to pay Sally is $25,000; the $50,000 number only applies if more than one person was injured in the wreck–for example, if Sally had a passenger). Think about that for a second. With a broken leg (requiring surgery), herniated disc (also possibly requiring surgery), and facial scarring, Sally’s legal case in this scenario may be worth in excess of $500,000 and possibly much more. However, the insurance coverage is $25,000.

While you can’t control how much insurance someone who hits you may have, you can control how much coverage you purchase for yourself. Un/Underinsured coverage is provided for situations just like the above. In Sally’s case, if she had $250,000, $500,000, or even $1,000,000 in underinsured motorist coverage, she could actually make a claim against her OWN insurance company for the difference between what the at-fault driver has and what her case is worth. The good news is that underinsured coverage is not very expensive and, as in the above example, it can be crucial. I urge everyone to contact their insurance agent and purchase as much un/underinsured coverage as they can.