Blog

The simple answer is an emphatic “No!”

Under California law, every automobile liability policy must offer Uninsured Motorist coverage with minimum limits of $15,000 per person/$30,000 per accident. Insurance companies offer additional Uninsured Motorist coverage, usually up to the limits of your liability coverage. So, if you carried a $100,000/$300,000 bodily injury liability policy, the carrier will allow you to carry as much as $100,000/$300,000 in uninsured motorist coverage.

When this California law was adopted, the Legislature wanted to make sure that every insurance company offered protection to its policyholders in the event that they were hit by an uninsrued driver. To assure that this coverage would be “automatically offered,” the Legislature provided that Uninsured Motorist coverage could be waived only when the policy holder entered an express Written Agreement deleting the coverage. (Insurance Code 11580.2(a)(1)). In such an Agreement, the policy holder could delete the coverage completely, or eliminate it when the vehicle was driven by a designated person(s). If a written agreement could not be produced by the insurance company showing that the policy holder deleted the coverage, Uninsured Motorist coverage was deemed to remain part of the coverages of the policy.

In hard economic times, people are often compelled to review their automobile insurance policies to see if things can be cut out to save money. We strongly recommend against deleting Uninsured Motorist coverage.

Uninsured Motorist coverage in an automobile liability policy is there to protect you and your family. The other coverages, such as Bodily Injury or Property Damage, are their to protect the other guy. These later coverages apply to provide money to settle bodily injury or property damage claims against you. In an automobile liability policy, the only coverages that protect you for your bodily injuries are Uninsured Motorist coverage and Medical Pay coverage. Thus, to eliminate Uninsured Motorist coverage exposes you to the potential of suffering significant harm, such the incurrence of medical bills, lost wages and disabling injury, while having no ability to recover from the uninsured driver. Uninsured drivers typically do not have signficant assets.

Even without the current economic problems, approximately 25% of motorists in California illegally fail to carry insurance. We believe this number is even higher in Northern California. And, this number is to increase with the continuing downward spiral of the economy.

Protect yourself from this potentially catastrophic potential, and carry as much Uninsured Motorist coverage as you can afford. I have never had a client say, “Gee . . . I guess I was carrying too much Uninsured Motorist coverage.” I have clients say, however, “I sure wish that I knew that my coverage wasn’t going to be enough to pay for all my losses when that (uninsured) guy hit me.”