How Much Underinsured Motorist Insurance Coverage Should I Buy?
Uninsured motorist coverage provides coverage for you if the person that hits you has no coverage. Underinsured motorist coverage provides a source of recovery if the person that causes your Baltimore car accident has coverage, but not enough.
Baltimore personal injury and accident lawyers Attorney Eric T. Kirk that have handled significant cases of this type know that under Maryland law, both coverages are required [and indeed are essentially the same coverage, although not all states define this coverage that way]. All states require that motorists carry some form of insurance. Nationwide, about 1 in 7 drivers don’t bother to carry insurance, and Baltimore personal injury and accident lawyers that have handled cases with out-of-state drivers know that as many as 1 in 4 drivers in some state are uninsured. But that isn’t the only problem. Some states require ridiculously low minimum amounts of insurance [e.g. 10k or 12.5k]. A significant component in determining that value of your case is the availability, and amount, of underinsured motorist coverage. Certainly, a case with a known source of recovery, like insurance, is going to be perceived differently than a case with a speculative source of recovery [ e.g. an uninsured driver, and no uninsured coverage on the table]. [Statistics from the Insurance Information Institute].
