When you’ve been injured in an accident by someone, you can assume their auto insurance will cover all your injuries and medical bills, right? Maybe, maybe not. If someone causes an accident, people tend to rely on the at-fault’s auto insurance to cover you. But what happens if they don’t have auto insurance or they don’t have enough insurance to cover your medical bills? You may be out of luck, which is why uninsured or underinsured (UM/UIM) coverage is important.
Louisiana’s Minimum Coverage
In Louisiana, the minimum coverage of liability insurance is
$15,000.00 for bodily injury per person and $30,000.00 per accident. That’s not much coverage when you consider the high costs of medical bills.
People are often confused between liability coverage and UM coverage. Liability policies cover you in the event that YOU cause an accident to someone else. It’s covering your negligence and will pay claims to the person you may have insured. You get this to protect yourself from being financially responsible for someone’s injury you may have caused. UM coverage, on the other hand, is a policy of insurance to cover you or your passengers from someone else’s negligence. It’s basically extra coverage. It can be in addition to the at-fault driver’s policy.
Uninsured Drivers in Louisiana
According to the Insurance Research Council’s data, 13% of Louisiana’s drivers are UNINSURED! Applying that statistic, there is a good change you could be involved in an accident with someone who doesn’t have insurance. This could leave you with mounting medical bills and future pain and suffering with no method of recovery.
UM/UIM Coverage
The two scenarios above are the exact reasons why you should carry a policy of UM coverage. In Louisiana UM and UIM and interchangeable. They are one and the same. You don’t have to buy a UM and a UIM policy. It covers both.
A policy of UM insurance covers you and your passengers. It’s protection against someone who doesn’t have insurance or doesn’t have enough insurance and causes injuries to you and your loved ones. It’s as if the UM carrier steps in the shoes of the at-fault party and covers your bodily damages as if the at-fault person had insurance. Also in Louisiana, UM can be stacked on the liability policy of the at fault driver. In other words you can collect from BOTH the at-fault driver’s insurance company and your insurance UM policy.
In Louisiana, it is required that an insurance company offer UM coverage to you. In the event that you don’t want the UM coverage, you are required to sign a UM rejection form, formally rejecting UM coverage.
Call your insurance company right away to inquire about the costs of adding a UM policy. You may be shocked at how affordable it is.