Uninsured Motorist Coverage Florida

Uninsured motorist coverage and underinsured motorist coverage are not simple as other insurances.

In this video, we are going to talk about uninsured motorist insurance and understanding your Uninsured Motorist Coverage Florida and your motor vehicle insurance claim.

If we’re chatting about this, you’ve been in an auto accident and it wasn’t your fault that you got into the auto accident.

Someone else violated a rule of the road and drove badly and caused the auto accident.

And what if you’re injured, right?

So now you come to us as your Tampa car accident attorney because you’ve been injured in an automobile accident and you have a claim.

But what if that auto accident, at fault driver doesn’t carry auto insurance (uninsured drivers) or what if at fault driver has too little insurance coverage? What if the uninsured motorist does not touch the line of bodily injury liability limits? Getting hit by any of these uninsured drivers may result in lengthy medical bills, lost wages, and a lot of property damage.

You’ve really been hurt and you have a lot of medical bills now and you’re going to have future medical costs, lost wages, and property damage, but the bad driver is an uninsured driver or has very little insurance coverage which is insufficient for medical bills (an underinsured motorist coverage), and can not cover your medical expenses? Or maybe his UM insurance is less than the bodily injury liability limit? Compensating for bodily injury costs, lost wages and property damage can be a problem for an uninsured driver.

Well, that’s why we’re going to look for uninsured motorist insurance.

Understanding First-Party Insurance

Now, unlike the other driver’s auto insurance, uninsured motorist coverage is what we call first-party insurance. It’s something that usually you’ve purchased through your auto insurance company. If you personally have not purchased it, maybe you live with someone who has this auto insurance.

If that’s not the scenario, perhaps you’re riding shotgun with someone when the auto accident happened. They’re not at fault, someone else still caused the car accident or you’re borrowing someone else’s vehicle. They could have the uninsured motorists coverage, but it’s this first-party insurance coverage.

And what it does is it pretends to be the bad driver’s bodily injury coverage.  So in other words, it’s insurance coverage that’s been purchased to protect someone who’s got some serious injuries and suffers from property damage by the fault of a bad driver who does not have auto insurance policy.

How To Know If It Applies To Your Case

So, how do you know if Florida uninsured motorist coverage or underinsured motorist coverage is going to apply in your case? Even though motorists in Florida are obliged to hold car insurance, the huge number of uninsured motorists rank it as the second nationwide with most uninsured drivers. Florida is one of the 30 states required to hold a car insurance.This means if you are hit by a driver, there is 25% chance that the driver is an uninsured driver. This means that every 1 driver in 4 drivers does not hold a car insurance.

Well, the first place that you can look is on your proof of insurance, your insurance card.

(By the way, if you’re watching this video or reading this transcript, you’ve probably already retained us. We already have a copy of your insurance card. We probably have already talked about this potential by looking at it.)

Sometimes on the insurance card, it will be stamped on there, it will say the letters, UM, standing for uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist and it will have some numbers next to it, but most of the time it’s not on these insurance cards.

If it’s not on your insurance card, then we’re going to turn to your declaration page. That is the official insurance documents that you got when you purchased your insurance. However, UM insurance is a lot different from medical coverage.

If we’re looking under your Florida uninsured motorist coverage or if we’re looking at a resident or relative or the person who was driving the motor vehicle that you borrowed or the person who was driving the motor vehicle while you were a passenger, we have to go directly to their insurance corporation to get the declaration page.

Checking The Declaration Page

This is a copy of a declaration page, of a sample one. This is a Progressive dec page, and for this particular person, you see that they have liability coverage.

They have personal injury protection, but this particular person also has uninsured motorist non-stacked coverage in the amount of per $10,000 per person or $20,000 per car accident. And what that means is, in this particular case, assuming this such coverage applies to our client, then there’s going to be $10,000 worth for her bodily injury liability coverage, pain and suffering, and that sort of loss (medical bills, lost wages, etc.). Hence, motorist coverage helps the injured person evade medical expenses by handing them over to the driver. It is even more helpful if the injured person holds personal injury protection insurance, also known as PIP insurance.

You can also check your UM selection or rejection page. By the way, we’re doing this in every case. This is nothing that you actually have to do if you’re our client. I mean, this is the stuff that we’re doing right out within 24 hours of you retaining us.

We’re going to the actual insurance companies themselves and getting this information for every possible claim. But we want you to be informed so you know what we’re doing.

Declaration Page Does Not Have Uninsured Motorist Insurance

So, if we see that a declaration page doesn’t have any Florida uninsured motorist insurance listed on it, we’re still checking the UM selection or rejection page. And that’s what this is right here.

Let’s say that we’re looking at your Florida uninsured motorist insurance. Every time that you buy any insurance, Florida law mandates that you have to fill out this form and the insurance carrier has to make sure you fill out this form and it’s a form where you’re going to choose the uninsured motorist coverage or underinsured motorist coverage that you have or you’re going to choose to reject the Florida uninsured motorist coverage or underinsured motorist coverage. Now, the question arises: should you reject uninsured motorist coverage? Rejecting uninsured motorist coverage is not a wise decision unless you can uphold your medical expenses or have some car accident insurance. But if you have medical coverage and collision insurance, rejecting uninsured motorist insrance could be a way to reduce your costs. Florida law mandates all drivers to get at least the lowest level of personal injury protection insurance.

So the reason this is required by law to carry UM coverage (also known as uninsured motorist coverage), it’s a great thing. It’s really Important. UM coverage protects you as well as somebody who’s injured because of somebody else’s mistake. And it’s not that expensive because Florida law makes sure that the insurance companies don’t make it too expensive.

But insurance companies don’t make a lot of money off this coverage. So they really want you to waive full amount or partial.

And so because they really want you to waive it, if the insurance carriers had their own way, you wouldn’t sign anything, they’d just sweet talk you over the phone and you would end up waiving it and they’d sell you crap insurance that wouldn’t really help you.

Law On Waiving Uninsured Motorist Coverage Insurance Florida

So Florida law makes sure that if you’re going to waive your uninsured motorist coverage, that you sign this document and even if you don’t have uninsured motorist coverage.

If the insurance company can’t produce this document for us, then we get to say that you do have uninsured motorist coverage, that you have uninsured motorist coverage in the amount of whatever bodily injury insurance you may have purchased. However, drivers in Florida are not obligated to hold bodily injury liability insurance. Drivers without bodily injury liability coverage can get lower levels to preserve their expenses.

And if you’ve seen our video on bodily injury liability insurance, that’s the coverage that you get to protect yourself from in case you accidentally hurt somebody else in an auto accident and they make a claim against you. That’s bodily injury liability coverage.  However, even liability insurance, for an auto accident, of a minimum liable person might not be able to protect him if the bodily injury of the person is serious.

So this document’s a really important part of your auto insurance policy. We’re going to request it and every single case. Again, you don’t have to do that. That’s just something that we do automatically that gets done, that we do within 24 hours, of you coming to our law firm. And we end up getting this document within 30 days because that’s where it’s required by the law. And we also request this document from anyone else who might have this uninsured motorist coverage that might protect you.

Let The Attorney From Law Firm Check All Your Insurances

So in recap, it’s important that you help us check all the insurances in your house. So like I said, resident relative. What that means is if you live in a house with somebody else who has uninsured motorist coverage, it might apply. With the high amounts of people with no liability coverage, a good uninsured motorist service is required!

We’ve had cases before with a granddaughter. One, in particular, jumps out where I had a granddaughter who was staying half the time with grandma and she was sleeping on the couch, but she was getting her mail there and long and short of it was that the granddaughter ended up being covered under grandma’s uninsured motorist coverage.

Contact Our Law Firm If You Have Any Questions

So you don’t have to do any of this. Again, our law firm does it all for you. Just make sure you give us the information. Make sure we’re chatting so that we know who these potential people might be that might have auto insurance that might apply to you so we can check for you. For more information, let me know.