Underinsurance, Joel's case
Posted By Bob Whitley on Jun 18, 2010 11:32am PDT
Hardly a day goes by in my practice that I am not confronted with the issue of underinsurance auto coverage. Automobile underinsurance coverage protects family members when they are injured by a negligent driver with inadequate insurance coverage. See the reported case of the NC State student (Joel) who was injured by a driver with minimum insurance of $30,000 per person. Most underinsurance issues are less complicated than Joel's. A common scenario occurs when a person with $100,000 per person in underinsurance is seriously injured by someone with less insurance than the value of the injury claim, for example $30,000, hence an underinsured claim. If the injured person has $100,000 in underinsurance coverage, then in addition to the $30,000 available from the responsible driver's company there would be another $70,000 available in underinsurance coverage from the injured party's underinsurance carrier. My advice is to purchase as much underinsurance coverage as you can afford.