Insurance Coverage Issues
Sometimes there is not enough insurance available to fairly compensate a seriously injured person.....that sentence is worth repeating....sometimes there is not enough insurance coverage available to fairly compensate an injured person. This is a fact we sometimes face in our practice and most people have a hard time conceiving of such a thing. After all, whenever we usually have an insurance claim on our auto policy or on our homeowner's, the issue of not having enough coverage almost never comes into play. But let me give you a simple example....lets say you are seriously injured in a wreck and have to spend a week in the hospital after undergoing surgery. Your hospital bill alone might exceed $50,000 and lets say that the responsible driver who injured you has the minimum amount of coverage that is required in NC...$30,000 per person. That is the most you could ever recover from his/her insurance and the only way to get more from him is to recover from his assets, and most people who have minimum insurance do not have sufficient assets from which a judgment could be satisfied. If this happens, what do you do? Do you accept the word of the insurance company who offers you the minimum coverage? If this happens you need to retain an experienced personal injury attorney...one who knows insurance law inside and out....and one who knows where to look for additional coverage that might be available such as coverage on the responsible driver in addition to coverage on the auto he/she is driving, or whether the driver might have been on the job, and/or whether there might be any underinsurance coverage that would apply from whatever source. Sometimes you do not find any other sources of recovery but sometimes you do, and we are never satisfied until we have turned over every rock in finding coverage.