Although the law in Maryland requires you to only drive an automobile if you have adequate insurance coverage, there are countless drivers who hit the road without meeting these minimum coverage standards. In fact, it is estimated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the Department of Transportation (DOT), and other vehicle safety groups that approximately 12% of all drivers are either uninsured or underinsured.
In Maryland, the minimum legal car insurance coverage amounts are:
- Bodily Injury Liability coverage for $30,000 per person injured
- Bodily Injury Liability coverage for $60,000 per accident
- Property Damage Liability coverage for $15,000 per accident
What are you supposed to do if someone hits you but does not have insurance that meets these minimum requirements? Or, what happens if someone crashes into you but causes damage that exceeds their policy limit?
In either of these cases, you would be filing an underinsured motorist car accident insurance claim. You should be able to collect damages from the negligent driver’s insurance coverage up to their cap, and then additional damages from your own insurance provider up to the cap of your underinsured motorist insurance coverage. In Maryland, you are actually required to buy underinsured motorist insurance coverage valued at the minimums of $30,000 per person injured and $60,000 per accident, just like regular Bodily Injury Liability coverage.
Complications of Underinsured Motorist Claims
When you are filing an underinsured motorist claim, you can run into trouble from two directions. As with any car accident claim, you have to deal with the opposing insurance company trying to unfairly minimize their customer’s liability, which means paying you less. But you might also get trouble from your own insurance company, who may try to devalue your damages so you can collect less from your purchased underinsured motorist policy.
The last thing you want to do while you are trying to recuperate from a bad accident is bounce back and forth between two insurance companies who do not want to listen to you. So you can stay in bed and rest, call 443.274.6106 and connect with Skipper Law, serving clients in Crofton and Bowie. We are a civil litigation firm dedicated to upholding the rights of the wrongfully injured and doing all we can to make our clients’ lives easier. While you rest, we get hard at work investigating your accident, constructing your claim, and pursuing maximum compensation from any and all responding parties, even if it means taking your case to court for litigation.
No one cares more about your case success than us. Contact our underinsured motorist accident attorneys in Crofton today.