What does uninsured/underinsured motorist insurance cover? 😧🚘

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TL;DR
Other drivers being lazy. (People who aren’t insured, don’t have enough insurance, and hit & runs.)

So, someone hit you and they don’t have insurance. Or they tried to skid by on the minimum amount of insurance. Who pays to repair your car?

Answer: Your uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) insurance.

“My who-what-now?” Let’s start with some basics.

What is uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage?

The money to fix your car has to come from somewhere. Despite the smoke and mirrors around insurance, your carrier isn’t a magic money fairy. So, if your car’s hit, the car repair moolah will come from the other driver’s insurance. But if they don’t have any insurance or enough insurance, the funds may come from the little extra you pay for UM/UIM coverage.

And a little goes a long way. UM/UIM insurance can help you if:

  • You’re in an accident, and the other driver goes about their day like state car insurance minimums don’t exist.

They’ve got bigger problems since they were driving completely illegally, but if you make sure you have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, you’ll at least not have as many issues as you would without.

  • The other driver has insurance, but the repairs to your car (and possibly your body) are WAY more expensive than the piddly insurance coverage they have.

News flash: Car accidents hurt. They hurt your car. They hurt your wallet. They can even hurt your body. And if someone can’t pay to fix what’s broken and hurt (hospital bills are NOT cheap, you know), then your UM/UIM coverage can help.

  • Hit and runs.

This may seem a little weird to lump in with everything else but think of it like this: Someone hit you. You don’t know who it is. So, you don’t know what their insurance is. So, your carrier can’t call anyone to say, “Hey! Pay us! So, we can pay our driver!” What other type of driver has a carrier that physically can’t pay? An uninsured one. So, a hit-and-run driver = an uninsured one. This has been “Making Sense of Insurance: 101.”

You know who else makes sense of insurance? Our agents. They can make living your best car insurance life super easy and pretty affordable. Plus, you don’t have to talk on the phone if you don’t want to. Just click the little chat bubble on the bottom-right and look over some free quotes!

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