By Jimmy W. Howard, Esq.
A car accident is unpredictable and can cause great injury to multiple people. For example, let’s say you are stopped at a light behind other cars and the driver behind you is texting on his cell phone and does not see you stopped so he slams into you. This hit is severe enough to propel your car into the car in front of it and that car into the car in front of it. So, in total there are four cars involved in the accident. The car behind you is totally responsible for all the damages he caused in the accident, including injuries. But look at all the people who can make a claim against this driver. At a minimum, you and the other two drivers in front of you can all make claims. But, what if one of the cars has three passengers? Now there are six possible claimants. If the driver that hit you had passengers in his car, they are potential claimants too. So, you see the number of potential claimants can go up rather easily.
Why is the number of claimants important? Because the driver that hit and caused injuries to all the claimants only has one insurance policy to pay for all the medical bills of all the claimants and all their pain and suffering too. Currently, the minimum Nevada insurance policy requires all drivers to carry $25,000 per claimant and $50,000 for all the potential claimants injured in an accident. That means to pay all the persons injured in our hypothetical accident, the maximum the insurance will pay combined to all claimants is $50,000. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the medical expenses that can be incurred for injuries related to an accident. If there were five people in an accident where the at-fault driver only had $50,000 in insurance coverage to pay for all those five persons’ injuries, you can see there is not much money to go around just to pay medical bills.
Can you still protect yourself against this situation? The answer is yes. You can buy insurance that protects only you and your passengers in this situation. This insurance is called uninsured/underinsured insurance because in addition to the scenario I have laid out above where the negligent driver did have insurance but not enough, there is also the scenario where the driver that hits you and causes you injury has no insurance at all. We see this scenario all too frequently. And, if the other driver does not have insurance and you do not have uninsured/underinsured coverage, then there is almost always no recovery at all. Nevada law does not require you to purchase uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. But, every attorney will tell you that it is a smart idea to protect yourself against another driver who either has too little or no insurance at all. And, your insurance company is required to offer you uninsured/underinsured insurance. I encourage you to speak to your insurance agent about it.
Understandably, many people when purchasing insurance look to get the cheapest deal they can. Who doesn’t want to save money? But, the money that you spend on this type of insurance is money to protect yourself against a person injuring you in a car accident. My best advice is to protect yourself if you can afford to do so. I do not want to see you in my office with broken bones and tens of thousands in hospital bills as the result of an accident and have to tell you, I am sorry but there is not enough money to pay for your medical bills, or worse, there is no money at all. So, please give some thought to purchasing uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage if you do not have it currently.
