Being involved in a motor vehicle collision that causes severe injuries or wrongful death is never easy. However, dealing with uninsured motorists (UM) and underinsured (UIM) motorists makes it more challenging. Having an experienced car accident lawyer help file a UM/UIM claim makes the process smoother.
Generally, it leads to significantly higher settlements than those for injured parties without legal representation. Schedule a free case evaluation to discuss the merits of your UM/UIM claim and discover a plan for securing a settlement.
Table of contents
- What Is Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage?
- When Do You Need to File an UM/UIM Claim?
- What Are the Policy Limits for UM/UIM Claims?
- What Damages Does UM/UIM Cover?
- Other Insurance Coverage That Can Help Cover Damages
- How a Car Accident Lawyer Can Help File a UM/UIM Claim
- Consult a Car Accident Lawyer to File a UM/UIM Claim
What Is Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage?
About 14 percent of drivers, or one in seven motorists, are driving on the roads uninsured, creating a need for coverage for potential collisions. Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM) is a type of insurance coverage that protects you and your passengers in the event of a car accident with an uninsured, underinsured, or hit-and-run driver.
Not all drivers carry the coverage. Your state jurisdiction determines whether UM/UIM coverage is mandatory or optional. Your car accident attorney can help review your policy to determine all means for recovering losses.
When Do You Need to File an UM/UIM Claim?
Typically, you file a claim through the at-fault driver's car insurance after a car accident. However, you must file a UM/UIM claim through your insurer when the at-fault motorist doesn't have auto insurance. You also file through your UM/UIM when the at-fault motorist lacks insurance coverage to compensate for your accident-related losses and damages.
What Are the Policy Limits for UM/UIM Claims?
UM/UIM coverage has policy limits that determine the maximum amount your insurer will pay for a UM/UIM claim. These limits include two damage types and total amounts: bodily injury and property damage, for $25,000/$50,000. The first number indicates the maximum coverage per person, while the second indicates the maximum per-accident limit. States have different limit requirements.
Your attorney will review your insurance policy to understand and explain coverage limits. You will not automatically be paid the full policy coverage amounts and are less likely to obtain maximum compensation without an attorney with experience in UM/UIM claims. The sooner you retain legal counsel, the better.
What Damages Does UM/UIM Cover?
The damages in your UM/UIM claim are the financial and intangible losses sustained due to your auto collision. Your car accident lawyer will help file a UM/UIM claim only after they've fully assessed damages, such as:
- Medical Expenses: Costs include ambulance transport, ER visits, urgent care visits, hospitalizations, surgical care, primary care, labs, imaging (X-rays, CT scans, MRIs), medical devices, pain management, prescriptions, copays, and future healthcare expenses.
- Rehabilitation: Expenses include physical therapy, nerve physical therapy, massage, chiropractor adjustments, speech and language therapy, acupuncture, orthopedics, traction, spasticity management, bladder and bowel management, and vocational and occupational therapy.
- Lost Income: All income losses due to missing work because of your car accident, including wages, salary, overtime, tips, commissions, bonuses, sick leave, paid time off (PTO), vacation days, healthcare benefits, retirement or pension, and lost or diminished earning capacity.
- Vehicle-Related Costs: All expenses related to your vehicle's damage in a collision, such as vehicle repairs, replacement, rental cars, taxis, and rideshare services required while you were without your vehicle.
- Pain and Suffering: Intangible losses that include acute and chronic pain conditions, mental anguish, emotional distress, decreased quality of life, disability, disfigurement, worsening of existing injuries, shortened life expectancy, and loss of consortium (companionship, physical intimacy).
In the event of wrongful death, UM/UIM will reimburse claimants for the final arrangement costs of their loved one's untimely passing. These costs include funeral or memorial services and burial or cremation.
Other Insurance Coverage That Can Help Cover Damages
If you do not have UM/UIM coverage, or your damages exceed policy limits, there are other ways to recover damages after an auto collision. Coverages that can help recover damages include:
- Collision Coverage: Insurance companies will reimburse drivers with collision coverage for motor vehicle damage, regardless of who is at fault for an accident. However, collision only covers vehicle-related damages and does not compensate for medical bills, income losses, or pain and suffering.
- Personal Injury Protection (PIP): PIP is mandatory insurance coverage in some states and optional in others. It's a no-fault insurance that covers medical expenses related to a car accident, regardless of who caused it. Unlike collision, PIP will cover income losses and funeral expenses, depending on your state.
Your car accident lawyer will review your policy for every possibility and file claims on your behalf. Be sure to bring your policy coverage information along with other evidence to your initial consultation with a car accident attorney.
How a Car Accident Lawyer Can Help File a UM/UIM Claim
Attempting UM/UIM claims and lawsuits without a car accident lawyer can become overwhelming and exhausting quickly. There is substantial paperwork, legal deadlines, and several steps to ensuring compensation for your claim. Car accident attorneys will provide peace of mind while you recover, communicate with insurers, investigate the accident, value your damages, negotiate your settlement, and file a civil lawsuit if negotiations fail.
Provide Peace of Mind While You Recover
Depending on the severity of your injuries and the extent of medical treatment, maintaining all your medical appointments and undergoing treatments can be exhausting. Trying to navigate a complicated insurance claims process and understand the legal aspects of filing should not be your focus—and it doesn't have to be.
Most car accident lawyers offer contingent fee arrangements so that anyone can obtain legal counsel. Contingent fees are a disclosed percentage of your compensation collected once your case settles and only if your car accident attorney wins. Contingency fee arrangements help provide peace of mind to accident victims who can shift their focus to recovery while an experienced lawyer handles the rest.
Communicate With Your Insurance Company
Handling communications with insurance companies involves several exchanges of information and protection from them pressuring you to settle too soon or for too little. These tactics are commonplace and save insurance companies a ton of money at the expense of injured parties. Communications between insurers and attorneys include:
- Promptly attending to all phone and email communication
- Providing all necessary paperwork and documentation for processing your UM/UIM claim
- Drafting and filing your demand letter for damages to your insurance company
- Coordinating all UM/UIM claims-related processes
- Coordinating and conducting negotiations with your insurer
Communicating with liable insurance companies can be dangerous for injured parties without legal representation. You expect your insurance provider to protect you and sincerely look out for your interests. After all, you have paid your premiums and held up your end of the policy agreement, so the insurance company should hold up its end when you need benefits.
However, your insurance company is no different from other corporations, and profits are important. Insurance claims adjusters protect profits by denying and undervaluing as many claims as possible, and this includes UM/UIM claims. Many times, they do this by attempting to get you to admit partial or total liability, downplay the severity of your injuries, and hiring private investigators to watch you and your social media accounts.
Once you retain an attorney, they will take over all communications. Furthermore, insurers will no longer be allowed to call, pressure, or harass you further about your claim. Your lawyer will inform them of their representation, and if they continue to call, you can file an additional claim for bad faith insurance practices—as they are unlawful.
Investigate the Accident
Even if you pursue compensation from your own provider, you must have evidence of liability, and UM/UIM coverage does not apply if you caused the crash. Your attorney can take the following steps to investigate and build a strong case for liability.
- Visiting the Accident Scene: Your car accident lawyer can visit the scene to check for hazardous road conditions that may have contributed to the collision and any evidence left behind. They can photographically document the scene when relevant to proving liability.
- Gathering and Preserving Evidence: Collecting and preserving evidence quickly is pertinent, as some video evidence can be lost in a short time. Evidence in car accidents may involve police reports, witness statements, traffic and dashcam footage, photos of injuries and vehicle damage, vehicle debris, medical records, medical bills, pay stubs, and lost earnings statements.
- Interviewing Witnesses: Your car accident attorney will reach out to witnesses who submitted statements to the police and re-interview them to confirm statements and uncover forgotten details helpful to the case. They may also identify and interview other potential witnesses to the crash.
- Reconstructing Accidents: Accident reconstruction is critical to car accident attorneys' investigations into motor vehicle collisions, including hit-and-runs. Accident reconstructionists use a scientific method, applying mathematics, physics, computer modeling, photogrammetry, and engineering principles to analyze evidence and prove negligence and liability. Their expert testimony is invaluable to UM/UIM claims and may lead to significantly larger settlements.
- Consulting Experts: Besides accident reconstructionists, your attorney may consult experts to help establish liability, the extent of your injuries, and damages in your UM/UIM claim. These experts may include healthcare professionals, occupational and vocational therapists, economists, engineers, life care planners, and highway safety and vehicle safety experts.
The length of your investigation largely depends on the severity of your injuries, length of medical treatment, income losses, and pain and suffering. It also means reaching your medical maximum improvement (MMI). Your MMI occurs when you've reached a state where your condition cannot further improve. Your medical team will determine when you've reached your MMI.
Value the Damages in Your UM/UIM Claim
To value the damages in your UM/UIM claim, your car accident lawyer will total your economic damages before determining a value for pain and suffering. Calculating your financial losses involves doing the math—adding up medical bills, rehab costs, vehicle and property damages, and lost income.
However, pain and suffering are non-monetary damages without a receipt to tally costs. To calculate pain and suffering, your attorney will use one of two methods: multiplier or per diem:
- The Multiplier Method: The multiplier method is more commonly used, which takes your total economic damages and multiplies them by a number between 1.5 and five. The multiplier number is based on your injuries, recovery time, and long-term care requirements.
- The Per Diem Method: The per diem method, meaning "per day" in Latin, assigns a daily value (a dollar amount) to each day an injured party experiences pain due to their injuries. The value is multiplied by the number of days the accident victim experiences physical pain and mental suffering.
While car accident attorneys generally use one of these two methods, insurance companies usually depend on computer programs to value damages. These programs do not account for the individual circumstances of your UM/UIM claim, and your attorney will fight to ensure reasonable compensation for the specifics of your case.
Negotiate Your Settlement
Negotiations are critical to how a car accident lawyer can help file a UM/UIM claim. They are skilled negotiators who confidently engage in the often multiple rounds of negotiations between them and your insurance company.
When insurance companies make an offer, your lawyer will discuss and advise you on how they might proceed in your shoes. After acknowledging your lawyer's advisement, you have the final decision to accept or reject an offer.
File a Civil Lawsuit
While most UM/UIM claims are settled outside of court, your car accident lawyer will represent your case if your case requires trial. They start by filing a civil lawsuit before entering the discovery phase with the defense. Attorneys and insurance companies will exchange information, interrogatories, and depositions.
They will also prepare witnesses while building a solid way to present evidence in a manner the judge and jury will understand. A jury will decide to award compensation or deny your claim.
Consult a Car Accident Lawyer to File a UM/UIM Claim
The sooner you retain an attorney, the quicker you can focus on your medical treatments, rehabilitation, and recovery. Schedule a free case evaluation with an experienced car accident lawyer to recover financial compensation for your UM/UIM claim.