Hi. This is Roger Ghai, and I wanted to talk today a little bit about uninsured motorist coverage as well as underinsured motorist coverage, but let’s begin with uninsured motorist coverage. That is an instance where the other driver has caused the automobile accident case. They’ve probably damaged your car and you’ve sustained personal injuries. The problem is is that the other driver who caused the accident doesn’t have any insurance so hopefully, you have, under your own insurance policy, what’s known as uninsured motorist coverage.
What happens in that instance is your insurance company will pay for your lost wages, your medical expenses, your pain, and your suffering and in return, what they’ll do, that is your insurance company, they will sue the other driver who doesn’t carry any insurance so that they can get their money back. Underinsured motorist coverage is simply an instance where maybe the other driver only has $25,000 in coverage but yet you have $100,000 or $150,000 in medical bills.
So long as you have uninsured motorist coverage under your policy, then you’ll be able to go to your insurance company and also collect from them to compensate you for your damages. There are two types of uninsured motorist coverage in the state of Georgia. One is known as add-on uninsured motorist coverage. The other type is known as excess uninsured motorist coverage.
You will want to make sure that regardless of the type of coverage that you have that if you do sign a release with the other driver that you’ll want to do what’s known as a limited liability release. If you do not do that, your rights are going to be severely impacted as to what recovery you might be able to have. If you have any questions about your coverages, please call my office at 770-792-1000.