Understanding Uninsured Motorist Coverage

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hello. This is Robert Mansour. Today I wanted to make a brief video about uninsured motorist claims. If you get into an automobile accident and the other party either doesn't have insurance or the other party doesn't have enough insurance, you may have something under your own policy called uninsured motorist, or sometimes it's called under-insured motorist, and you'll see it. It's called UM on your policy. Or, you could just call your company and say, "Hey, do I have uninsured motorist?"

Now, as you can imagine that's very handy if the other party doesn't have insurance or doesn't have enough, but here's the deal: For uninsured motorists who apply, it's not just enough for you to have it, it actually has to apply. So what are some things that maybe would prevent uninsured motorists from applying? Well, you have to be able to prove that the other party was uninsured.

Let's say somebody did a hit-and-run with your car. They hit your vehicle and then they took off. You have no idea who they are, what the vehicle is all about, what the VIN number is, the license plate, you don't know the name of the person who hit you, you have no idea, the police can't track them down. Well, you may not be able to use your uninsured motorist. You might think that you can, but your policy might say that if your insurance company can't rule it out and can't determine for sure whether that party has insurance or not, then uninsured motorist doesn't apply, so to some extent, you've got to know who hit you.

Now, contrast that with somebody who hit you and the police got all the information and you have that person's information and when you check on it you find that they don't have any insurance. That's different from a hit and run where you cannot conclusively even prove who that person is.

Another thing that might prevent you from being able to use your uninsured motorist benefits is if the vehicle that caused the accident never touches your vehicle, never came into contact with your vehicle. Let's say you're driving along and somebody turns left in front of you, but you don't hit them. You turn to try to avoid them and you hit a pole or something. Then you say, "Well uninsured motorist. That person caused the accident and they didn't have insurance." Well, your insurance company might say, "Hold on a second. Because there was no contact between your car and the uninsured vehicle, we don't cover that."

Make sure that you understand not only that you have uninsured motorist, but realize that there might be some hoops that you need to jump through before that uninsured motorist benefit actually applies to your case. I hope you found this video to be helpful. My name is Robert Mansour and thanks for watching.