If you operate a motor vehicle in Florida, the odds are good that you are familiar with the standard insurance policies. Per Florida law, people looking to register a four-wheeled vehicle must provide proof of Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and Property Damage Liability (PDL) coverage. Regardless of fault, standard PIP insurance covers up to 80% of your medical bills for a maximum value of $2,500 (unless the accident resulted in you suffering an emergency medical condition, in which case it covers up to $10,000). Standard PDL insurance, on the other hand, pays for damages caused by you to another person’s property for an amount of up to $10,000 per accident.
Of course, drivers can (and arguably should) carry insurance that covers a higher dollar figure. Understandably, many choose not to pay that extra premium. However, in the long term, you may end up spending more out of pocket without that insurance compared to the higher premium. The same is true for uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage.
UM/UIM coverage is offered by most, if not all, major insurance providers. As the name suggests, it covers damage caused by someone else who does not carry insurance. The standard UM/UIM policy tends to be $50,000 per person/$100,000 per accident. People driving uninsured in Florida is a staggeringly large problem – approximately 26.70% of individuals driving in Florida are uninsured. If, for instance, you are cruising down the highway alongside 20 other cars, approximately 5 of those drivers are likely to be uninsured.
This is a troublesome situation since it only takes one car to cause a potentially life-changing accident. If you have bills that extend beyond what PIP or PDL covers and you do not have UM/UIM insurance, you are practically out of luck when it comes to the remaining expenses. Your only options at that point would be to pay out of pocket (which could consist of taking out loans or selling personal assets) or to sue the person responsible (which is unlikely to yield much, since many who are underinsured or uninsured are unlikely to have significant assets that can recompense you for your expenses).
With UM/UIM, however, your own insurance company will foot the bill for the remaining expenses after PIP and PDL up to the policy limit (if the other driver does not have enough or any insurance, of course). This means that depending on whether the other driver is uninsured or underinsured, the amount you will personally owe can range from a smaller sum to flat zero. This is because, like PIP and other insurance coverages, UM/UIM has policy limits, meaning that the outstanding bill may or may not be fully covered if the bill exceeds the policy limits. If the at-fault driver has some, but not enough, insurance, the amount you personally owe can shrink when factoring in UM/UIM. However, there may still be some outstanding balance remaining that you are responsible for.
One important detail to note is that many insurance providers split UI/UIM into bodily injury and property damage. If you have or are considering adding UI/UIM to your coverage, it would be a good idea to make sure what you think is covered is in fact covered. It would be unfortunate to get in an accident and only then find out for sure that your UI/UIM ultimately only covers property damage and doesn’t help pay your medical bills, or vice versa. The earlier you can confirm your policies, the better.
Insurance policies can be complex, and you usually only have one chance to get things right. UM/UIM can apply differently depending on a variety of factors, such as the number of passengers in your car. Make sure you receive the benefits you are entitled to by calling the experienced personal injury attorneys at Hendry & Parker, P.A, in Dunedin, at (727) 205-5555 today for a free consultation.