Life isn’t fair.
Life isn’t fair. Kind of an understatement. I think we all can remember our parents telling us this as children when we had to learn a hard lesson. Sometimes, life just isn’t fair.
Insurance is not all that different. Sometimes insurance isn’t fair either.
There you are sitting at a red light with your hands at 10 and 2, or whatever the correct posture is nowadays, and some a$$hole slams into you from behind at 30 MPH. Just before the collision you look into your rearview mirror and lock eyes with the back of their phone. They were texting and driving.
You are injured, your car is a wreck, and….wait for it…the other driver is Uninsured. Doh! The “good” news – side note, there is neither good news or bad news, news is just news at least that’s what my therapist tells me – this is unfortunately an all too common occurrence.
Wait, I thought you said there was “good” news?! There is; the insurance industry has developed a solution for this problem.
Enter UM/UIM BI & PD. Uninsured/Underinsured Bodily Injury and Property Damage coverage. This is the coverage that picks up the tab for the other driver when they don’t have any insurance or enough insurance to pay for your Bodily Injury and/or Property Damage. You most likely have this coverage on your policy already, or at least you better have it!
A rule of thumb we use is that your UM/UIM limits should match your liability limits. It only makes sense that you would cover yourself for just as much as you are covering other people, right? Rhetorical question – yes, the limits should match.
If you carry collision coverage on your vehicle the damages from the uninsured driver would be covered there, but subject to your collision deductible. That is why some people carry UM/UIM Property Damage coverage. This can sometimes carry its own deductible, and even a $0 deductible if elected It just costs a little extra to have this coverage.
We all know by now that life isn’t fair, but we learned that lesson as a child. Let’s not learn the Insurance-isn’t-fair lesson in this context. Protect yourself, your loved ones, and your vehicle. Double check your Un/Underinsured Motorist coverages today, or better yet…have us check it for you (evil salesperson laugh)!
