Uninsured Drivers

I am Greg Coffey of Friedman Law Offices in Lincoln, Nebraska. Thanks for visiting our blog.

A question that we sometimes are asked is what happens if the driver who hit me doesn’t have any insurance? If that is the case, then you are basically left with whatever level of insurance coverage you had previously purchased for yourself. I understand and agree that Nebraska law requires that other driver to carry insurance, but the reality is that there are a lot of drivers out there who don’t and it’s not typically the good drivers who go without insurance but rather the bad driver, the one most likely to hit you, who doesn’t carry insurance on himself.

The insurance you purchase for yourself is your only protection against the person who didn’t bother to buy his own insurance coverage. If you have collision only coverage, and your car has sustained any significant damage, you may be in a real bind because you cannot turn that in against your uninsured motorist coverage. And if the at-fault driver doesn’t have any resources to allow him to pay a judgment, you may be in a position of having to try to squeeze blood out of a turnip. As far as recovering for your physical injuries, you would be limited to the amount of uninsured motorist coverage that you purchased for yourself.

Most people don’t carry adequate underinsured motorist coverage. Some people will pay for $100,000 worth of liability coverage in the event they hurt someone else, but only carry $25,000 worth of uninsured/underinsured coverage in the event somebody hurts them. You don’t want to be stuck with inadequate insurance and so we suggest that you have at least as much uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage as you carry in liability coverage. The bottom line is that you want to protect yourself in the event that you get hit by somebody who chose to drive without insurance. If the coverage that you bought for yourself is the only available coverage, you will want to make sure that it will be adequate to meet your potential needs.

If you have questions, please call us at (800) 876-1093. There is never a charge to find out if we can help you. Also feel free to leave a comment. Thanks for logging in.