Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist Insurance Coverage

My name’s Griff Tonkin, and here at the Arthofer & Tonkin Law Offices, we offer a free consultation on personal injury matters. So give us a call, and we’ll help you work through those issues. I want to talk to you in this video, not actually about a legal issue, but an insurance issue. I recently reviewed statistics for the state of California, which suggest about one out of every seven drivers has no insurance in this state. Now we’re here in Shasta County, and the rate is even higher than one out of seven. Probably closer to one out of six drivers in this county has no insurance. That means if you’re involved in an accident, and you’re hurt, there’s likely not going to be any source of recovery for you from the other driver. That’s why it’s so important that you have your own high-quality insurance.

I’ll often ask my clients, “What insurance do you have?” And they’ll tell me that they have full coverage. But that doesn’t answer the question. Full coverage, generally speaking, means that if you’re involved in an accident, your property damage will be repaired, whether you caused the accident or whether the other party caused the accident. What you really need to be concerned with isn’t whether you have full coverage or not but whether you have appropriate limits for your uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. Just like the name indicates, if an uninsured driver hits you, if you have that coverage on your policy, your insurance company will compensate you for your damages up to the limits of your uninsured motorist coverage. The minimum policy in the state of California has individual limits, which means the limits that apply to injuries pertaining to one person of up to $15,000. That’s a very small policy. A single trip to the emergency room can often cost more than those individual limits.

So it’s important that you have appropriate uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage, with limits sufficient to compensate you for your injuries. I recommend that you contact your insurance professional and talk to them about whether or not you have proper limits. If you were to have a larger policy, say, for example, a policy with $100,000 per person and $300,000 per instant coverage, it may only cost you a few dollars more a month, my best estimate, probably less than two or three cups of coffee a month. So if you’re visiting your favorite coffee shop two or three times a month, you can probably afford a little better insurance. You’ll be grateful that you did if you’re ever involved in an accident with somebody who doesn’t have enough insurance or doesn’t have insurance at all. If you’d like to talk to us more about your personal injury case, give us a call here at Arthofer & Tonkin Law Offices. Our consultations are free.