Uninsured-Under Insured Motorist Coverage

Pays: Your losses from an accident caused by a hit-and-run driver or an uninsured driver, up to the policy dollar limits. Also pays if the other driver did not have enough insurance to cover all your expenses.

Covers: You, your family members, passengers and anybody driving with your permission.

You are automatically covered under the uninsured-underinsured motorist coverage if you did not reject this coverage in writing. This is a coverage you should be paying a premium for and if not listed on your policy declarations page, and you choose to have this coverage, contact your insurance company or Agent. This coverage works exactly like the liability part of your coverage but is designed to cover the insured and its passengers and is paid by your own insurance company. This coverage has limits like the liability coverage and you will need to refer to your policy declarations page for specific limits. This coverage is also broken down into two parts and is as follows:

Uninsured Motorist - Property Damage: This coverage pays for the property damage repairs or replacement, personal damaged property, towing and storage charges. In addition, you are entitled to a rental vehicle under this coverage. This coverage is subject to a deductible and if not stated in your policy declarations page, your deductible would be $250. Remember, there are limits on this coverage and will only pay to those amounts. (See Uninsured Motorist Claims and Rental Cars)

Uninsured Motorist - Bodily Injury: This coverage pays for injuries to you and your passengers. This would be for medical bills, loss of earnings from employment and pain and suffering compensation. (See Uninsured Motorist Claims)

An insurer must offer you UM/UIM coverage and is afforded if you did not reject this coverage in writing.

There are 4 requirements that must be met to be afforded Uninsured Motorist coverage and they are as follows:

1. It must be determined by your insurance company that you were not the at fault party in the accident. The at fault party must not have had insurance coverage at the time of the loss. This must be documented and confirmed and will be your insurance company's responsibility to determine this. There must have been actual contact with another vehicle.
2. A police report must have been made to document the accident. If the police did not respond to the accident you can go to the police department and file a report. This is called a Blue Form. The reporting of the accident must be done in a prompt manner as stated in the Texas Auto Policy.

UNDER-INSURED MOTORIST : As a part of the Uninsured Motorist coverage there is Under-insured Motorist. This coverage would apply when the other party's insurance limits were exhausted and/or insufficient to cover the value of your property damage or injuries.