Uninsured Motor Vehicle Coverage

No authority on this but given how many car accidents I have seen with uninsured motorists I'd value that coverage more than collision if I were a pretty confident and safe driver myself.

 

A few observations/notes:

- 10k No Fault before you can claim on UM (or health insurance for that matter).
- UM can apply to passengers or people in your vehicle not covered by your health insurance.
- UM has no deductible and health insurance typically does (pretty high ones too)
- The rates on UM seem to have sky rocketed lately

IMO, its worth carrying a little, maybe even just 10/20 non-stacked (stacking is a rip off IMO) just to avoid out of pocket costs before you dip into other insurance

 

Considering the law only requires drivers to have PIP and property damage liability, you are greatly at risk driving without UM. You'll be lucky if the person that rear ends you while texting has any insurance, much less bodily injury liability.

 

Most people don't have good health insurance though, and if you dont, you should definitely get all the medical you can afford on your auto policy.

 

Keep it way to many uninsured motorists on the road

 

25% of Florida drivers do not carry insurance. As was pointed out above UM also covers passengers in your car (Friend’s son, etc.) whom you have no idea what the financial situation is.

You said the premium for UM ($500) but did not state the limits.
What limits does the $500 get you? In lieu of 250/500 maybe you can get 100/300 and cut it in half.

Not carrying UM is like playing Russian roulette w/ your pocketbook.

 

FYI. My daughter was hit by a texting driver on I-75 that drove off and was never caught. Her injuries triggered long term effects. Not only were we able to collect through our uninsured motorist coverage, but because it was stacked it was covered x3. Not nearly enough to cover a life of disability, but definitely helped.

Had to hire a lawyer to rightfully collect it, of course.

 

I've been defending personal injury cases in Florida for 30 years, you NEED UM coverage. While your health insurance will pay for the medical care, if you're out of work for an extended period of time, you have no recourse (unless you have disability insurance through your employer). Also, UM coverage will allow you to recover non-economic damages (past and future pain and suffering) that health and disability insurance will not pay.

 

guy that hit my son had $10k in insurance. what to do when that is not enough? SOn, against my advice, went to M & M and they have done nothing for him other than suggest he take the $10k offered before he went to M & M. Now son will get less than he had before he engaged thema s they take their cut out of the $10k. M & M doesn't want to fight Progressive (his insurer) for extra because there was no permanent injury, just 9 months of limited activity and physical therapy

 

It is a judgement call. Uninsured motorist is when you can make a claim against your own insurance company when the other at fault driver doesn’t have coverage. You could make a claim for medical costs, disability lost income, or other economic / losses. If you have health insurance the medical costs are covered. If you have disability insurance the disability would be partly covered. But you wouldn’t able to make a general claim for other economic or pain and suffering type damages. Is that worth the $500 every 6 months? Hard to say. I have heard that almost half of drivers are uninsured / under insured in the state of florida. You have a lot of bad drivers running around out there with state minimums (like my daughter before she totaled her last car - her 4th total in 5 years).

There is the uninsured bodily injury and uninsured property damage. If you have collision coverage there is some overlap there with uninsured property damage, the only difference being the typically higher deductible of collision.

 

There isn’t UM for property damage in Florida. It’s covered by collision.

 

I hope another attorney with more PI experience chimes in. I have a little, but I did just settle my UM claim against my carrier, Progressive, a few months ago. Progressive has a reputation of being very tough settling these claims. Flo is tight with her money. I had clearly demonstrable permanent injuries...3 herniated discs, one torn, and 3 bulging discs (very possibly a function of my age) all in my neck. Rear ended by a texter going 30 mph when every lane of I-275 was dead stopped for morning rush hour traffic. My issue was I refused to go in and have my nerve endings burned and other suggested surgical procedures. I followed through on all the physical therapy stuff, including Triton decompression therapy, but refused any surgical stuff just to jack up the value of my claim. I'll deal with it until I can't.

Check your son's retainer agreement with M&M. If he had a $10K offer in hand (writing) before ever talking to them, I don't think they should get a cut out of it.

I don't mean this the way it is going to sound, but his injuries are a problem. When Florida first switched to no-fault, the only threshold requirement to sue the other driver was $10K in medical bills. Car accident clinics pooped up all over the place and everybody left with a $10K bill....amazing series of coincidences.

That's why Florida switched to the current system. Instead of a dollar threshold, there is now an injury threshold requirement...currently:

"(a) Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function.
(b) Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement.
(c) Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement.
(d) Death."

Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine

Unless he meets that injury level, his only claim is against his PIP and med pay coverage. He can't sue the other driver, he can't go after his UM.

(PLEASE check with someone who practices in this area. I'm reasonably sure the above is correct, but don't rely on it.)

Good luck, especially to your son.

 

Much appreciated. Stopped on a well lit road on a clear night and was rear ended by guy doing 40. Lucky for him there was nobody in front of him and nobody crossing thru the intersection when he was launched out into the middle of the intersection. It took a year but he is fully healed with no permanent problems so that is most important. He did lose 9 + months of doing things he loved and suffered a lot of mild to moderate pain as he worked thru therapy. Your situation seems much more severe and wouldn't take all the $$ in exchange for my health. Unfortunately the offer he had was verbal. Life lesson for him but after medical bills of over $6500, M & M isn't going to get much. Surprised they took the case woth no permanent injuries.

 

And in Florida about 25% of the drivers have NO coverage.

 

I’m guess the person at fault didn’t have a pot to piss in or M&M likely would have gone after them personally.

 

I have no legal background but I have 10+ clients that are PI and/or defense(insurance) lawyers and I hear about cases on a weekly basis that one party or another doesn't have enough insurance or didn't carry UM. Both sides stress carrying UM and stacked coverage.

As for M &M, never engage with them if you want/need to maximize your recovery. Their entire business model is based on volume and speed of resolution of cases. How quickly they can get paid and move on to the next case.

 

The person who hit me driver's license was suspended for the last 10 years. The car was in her mother's name and mom had the bare minimum insurance....PIP and $10K property damage liability. Had asset checks done....LOL at getting money that way. In addition to the DWLS charge, there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest for a minor issue, but she had 3 small children in the car (all uninjured, but upset.) The trooper didn't want to have to deal with the children at 8 in the morning so he asked me if I minded if he didn't arrest her. I didn't want to see the 3 kids any more freaked out, so I OKed him just issuing citations and letting her go

To add insult to injury, the SUV I was driving had just been sold on eBay and the purchaser was flying in that day from California to pick it up. The only reason it was out of my garage (that same SUV had been hit in rear 4 times by people texting and once by a woman trying to secure her child's seat belt) was because I was picking the buyer up at the airport in it so he could drive home. I called him even before calling the police to stop him from getting on an airplane. He thought I was kidding...at first. Progressive went to go inspect the car at my friend's shop where I had it towed. They declared it was a total loss and said it was worth 2/3 what I had just sold it for. When I provided proof of the eBay selling price, I was told that "the price you just sold your car for has nothing to do with how much it's worth." That one took a minute to digest. I asked if it that actually made any sense as he was saying it and he explained he enters the VIN, mileage, condition and confirms options into his computer and whatever his computer comes up with is how much a car is worth. I wound up settling my property damage claim directly with the other owner's insurer. For a "junk" insurance company, they were much easier to deal with on that issue than Progressive.