There is one very important type of insurance coverage that all drivers NEED to have and that is Underinsured or Uninsured Motorist Insurance (UIM). UIM is an auto policy insurance that will cover your damages in case you are injured in a Seattle car accident and the other person who causes the car accident either doesn’t have insurance or doesn’t have enough insurance to cover all of your damages.
It is depressing how many people are driving with the bare minimum insurance coverage or no insurance coverage at all in Seattle. Some studies show as much as 50% of people are driving with little or no insurance coverage. If you get hit by someone who has little or no insurance coverage and you do not have UIM insurance, you could be out of luck.
The minimum liability insurance limit in Washington State is $25,000. This is a very small amount of money because it must cover all of your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
To get an idea of how fast $25,000 can get eaten up in a car accident injury case, know that most hospital visits that last more than 1 or 2 days can cost over $25,000 alone. If you are seriously injured in a car accident and require a lengthy stay in the hospital, that will easily eat into if not all of the $25,000 possible settlement with the defendant. If you do not have UIM insurance, this could be the most you can get out of the settlement.
Even if you do not need to go to the hospital but instead require a lengthy rehab and miss a lot of work, the $25,000 the other person has in insurance coverage may not be enough to adequately pay for all of your medical bills, cover your lost wages, and provide you with enough pain and suffering to be adequate.
This is not to say that a personal injury lawyer cannot help you if the other person has only $25,000 in insurance coverage. A Seattle car accident injury lawyer may be able to negotiate down your medical bills, reduce the amount your insurance is owed back through subrogation, and actually allow you to get some money in your pocket when it looks like all of the money will be eaten up by insurance and medical bills. If you have PIP insurance or medical insurance coverage, this will help some but not replace UIM.
If you have UIM insurance, great! UIM insurance will step in just like the other person had whatever your UIM policy limits are and whatever insurance coverage, if any, the other driver had. If the person had $25,000 and you have $25,000, you would have $50,000 available for your case settlement. Much better to work with than $25,000 alone.
However, this does not mean that your insurance company will treat you fairly and give you all of this money. They will fight tooth and nails to try to pay you as little as possible for your case, even though they are your own insurance company. This is why you need a Seattle car accident injury lawyer to represent you for your car accident injury case.
UIM insurance is very affordable and can cost as low as $3-4/month for $250,000 in UIM coverage. Meanwhile, collision coverage costs you $25-$30/month depending on your car’s make, model, and year. If you are looking to skimp on insurance coverage cost somewhere and your car is worth less that $5,000, you probably can skip on collision coverage, as your deductible and monthly premium will easily eat up the value of your car quickly.
Make sure that you have UIM insurance so you are not out of luck in case you are injured in a Seattle car accident. Call a Seattle car accident injury lawyer today for a free consultation. (206) 850-6716 or email [email protected].