What Is Uninsured Motorist Coverage and Why Do I Need It?

As you all know, I concentrate exclusively on motor vehicle accidents. I’ve seen countless car accident cases where the injured party could not receive a medical treatment of their injuries. It happens when the driver at fault has no insurance coverage. What do you do in situations when you need an extensive medical treatment? What do you do when your medical treatment will cost you tens of thousands of dollars? How do you handle thousands dollars in hospital bills? To protect yourself in situations like that, every driver must consider purchasing an Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM) coverage. It’s crucial for every driver to have a UM coverage. Especially in Florida, where roughly 50% of the drivers are either uninsured or underinsured.

Uninsured Motorist insurance is a coverage that protects you in an accident caused by uninsured or underinsured driver. Meaning that the at fault driver either does not have a car insurance at all or does not have enough coverage to pay for your injuries. In that case you would use your own insurance coverage to recover damages and pay for your own medical expenses. Generally, you would not bother trying to sue the uninsured driver. Drivers who have no car insurance generally don’t have any assets either. Instead, you would make a claim against your own insurance company up to the limit of your uninsured driver coverage.