Why You Need Uninsured Motorist Insurance: What to Expect After a Car Wreck

Have you ever been in a car wreck? Uninsured motorist insurance (UM) is one of the most important things to have when driving because it can cover bills that exceed your policy limits if the crash was not your fault. Uninsured motorist insurance, coverage also protects you if you are in an accident with someone who does not have insurance and you and your passengers need medical care. If you live in Atlanta, make sure that your auto insurance includes this type of coverage, or else prepare to be disappointed in how much you keep in your pocket after a wreck!

Uninsured Motorist Insurance protects you from more than uninsured drivers!

As the name suggests, uninsured motorist coverage can help you pay for damages caused by a driver who is not insured. One in seven Georgia vehicles does not have insurance coverage. But it can also help you pay for damages if an accident is caused by a hit-and-run driver or even an insured person who does not have enough coverage. In a lot of the personal injury cases that we handle at Rohan Law, we leverage Uninsured Motorist Insurance to protect our clients from other motorists who do not have enough money to cover the costs of damages to their car and/or injuries to passengers. For example, we managed a case with a family who was involved in a 5 car pile-up after another driver cut them off. The other driver was at fault but only carried the state-mandated minimum of $25,000/$50,000. This meant that in an accident involving more than one victim, the maximum total payout was $50,000. To ALL THE INJURED victims. Our clients alone had $150,000 in medical bills. At least one other driver was seriously hurt. There was no way $50,000 was enough to pay for all those medical bills. The Uninsured Motorist policy that our clients had, covered the difference. And more importantly, they did not have to share that additional policy with the other victims.

Standard insurance policies seldom have enough coverage

The state of Georgia requires drivers to carry liability insurance but it is not limitless and is seldom enough to cover the costs of a major accident, especially if there are multiple passengers. The minimum limits of liability insurance required under Georgia law are Bodily Injury Liability – $25,000 per person and $50,000 per incident. If there are multiple passengers who are taken to the hospital in an ambulance after a car crash, who have to have surgery, that $50,000 per incident will not likely be enough. Meanwhile adding a UM policy to your insurance can cost you as little as $50-$75 a year and give you an additional $25,000 to $500,000 more in coverage for your damages. If you add MedPay on top of that, you can expect to have additional coverage specifically for medical bills and be in much better shape once your car accident case is over.

You can opt-out of UM insurance but we hope you decide to keep it

At Rohan Law, we understand that you may not be in a position to pay for extra coverage available on your car insurance policy. However, we tell all of our friends that UM Insurance is worth it! Uninsured motorist insurance provides coverage in the event of a car wreck with an uninsured driver, can help you pay for medical expenses and property damage costs that exceed auto insurance limits, and ultimately protects your financial future. It’s well known that most people do not carry Uninsured or Under-Insured motorist coverage on their own because they don’t understand its importance until something happens to them.

Most people regret being underinsured when they call us for help

At Rohan Law, we don’t sell insurance but we promote extras like UM coverage and MedPay because we have seen numerous clients who had no idea this type of extra protection existed until it was too late. Our attorneys are experienced in auto injury cases and can get the maximum amount of compensation possible from the at-fault drivers and any other insurance policies we can leverage for our clients. Having policies like UM coverage in place before a wreck sets our clients up to receive larger pay-outs after an accident. Uninsured and Under-Insured motorist coverage can provide a lot of protection in the event that you are involved in a serious car wreck. Uninsured motorists do exist and knowing what your policy will cover or not is very important if you want to protect yourself from further financial distress after an accident.

Warning: “Add-on” versus “off-set” UM coverage

Here we need to talk about a dirty truth: the insurance company is in the business of making money. Lots of it. They want to sell insurance policies, but then they don’t want to pay out insurance policies. One example of this is “add-on” versus “off-set” UM policies. As we discussed above one out of seven cars are uninsured. That means that six out of seven cars have at least the minimum coverage required by law – $25,000/$50,000.

If you are smart enough to ask for UM coverage, the first thing the insurance carrier will try to sell you is “off-set” UM coverage. What that means is that if you pay a monthly premium for $25,000 of UM coverage, you will only get that UM policy paid out if the over side has $0 insurance. So, one out of seven times. If the other side has $25,000 or more, then that policy “off-sets” your UM coverage. You get $0.

You need to specifically request “add-on” UM insurance coverage. That means whatever policy you purchase is added on above and beyond whatever policy the at-fault driver has. This is the best way to ensure you are protected.

This information is so important, we ask you to please forward it to five people you love. If you have been injured by an uninsured driver, call Rohan Law today for a free case evaluation at (404) 923-0446! We’ll be happy to assist with getting your life back on track so that you can focus on healing instead of how to pay bills while taking time off work because someone else’s negligent actions caused injury to your family member.