Reasons why you should carry underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage when driving
**A contributed post as written for The Safe Driver by Pauline Griggs .
Every motorist should ideally have auto insurance to protect them from suddenly losing their finances should a vehicular collision occur. However, in reality, some motorists drive their vehicles every single day without any auto insurance to their name. Or even if they have one, its limits can’t fully shoulder the costs associated with a vehicular collision. You might wonder then if you can simply avoid crashing with an uninsured or underinsured motorist. But the thing with vehicular collisions is that you can’t choose the kind of motorist who’ll collide with your vehicle. Thus, you should carry underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage when driving, and here are a few reasons that should convince you to get yourself one:
- If you weren’t at fault for a vehicular collision that happened to you, the auto liability insurance that you bought from your insurance provider wouldn’t be able to help you at all.
As you’re a defensive driver, the probability of you being at fault for a collision that you and an uninsured or underinsured motorist got involved in is almost close to none. In fact, you may have only decided to get yourself an auto liability insurance in case there’s a very slim chance of you causing a collision to happen.
- However, you wouldn’t want to use your auto liability insurance if the uninsured or underinsured motorist that you got caught in a collision with is at fault as you could end up helping them instead of you helping yourself.
- Getting yourself an underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage as an add-on to your auto insurance makes it easier for you to file a claim to your insurance provider instead of filing a lawsuit against the at-fault driver, which can leave you drained of both your time and money.
- Carrying underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage when driving lets your insurance provider shoulder the costs that you’ve incurred as a result of a vehicular collision that happened to you.
The very reason for the existence of underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage is for your insurance provider to shoulder your finances in case the driver who caused the collision that you both got involved in isn’t carrying any auto liability insurance at all or is carrying one whose maximum liability limit is too low.
- Having underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage added on top of your auto insurance policy ensures you that you don’t have to pull money out of your pocket as your insurance provider will take care of you instead.
- If the driver who caused your vehicular accident to happen is uninsured, your insurance provider will pay the full amount of your medical bills, lost wages, and damage to property.
- On the other hand, if the driver who caused your collision to happen is underinsured, your insurance provider would only pay for the difference between the total costs that you’ve incurred as a result of the said incident and the maximum liability limit of the driver’s auto liability insurance.
- Carrying underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage when driving protects you in case the driver who had hit your vehicle decided to leave and you didn’t have a chance to get any information regarding them.
As a driver who crashed against your vehicle may be scared of getting into trouble, especially once you file a claim against their insurance company if they’re underinsured, or a lawsuit against them if they’re uninsured, they may have made a rash decision to speed off without a trace. If you’ve been a victim of a hit-and-run collision, and you haven’t gotten any information about the driver that had hit your vehicle, you can have your auto insurance policy’s underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage shoulder the costs that you’ve incurred so that you don’t have to worry about being uncompensated.
- Carrying underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage when driving protects the passengers inside your vehicle too.
You may have brought your family, a bunch of your friends, or your coworkers who decided to share a ride with you as passengers in your vehicle. Underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage helps take the financial load off of your passengers aside from you in case you’ve all gotten in an accident with a driver who doesn’t have any auto liability insurance to their name or has bought one with maximum liability limits that can barely cover one of your passengers.
According to a Toronto Star article published last 2016, more than 2,000 uninsured Canadian motorists in the province of Ontario alone get involved in vehicular accidents every year. While there isn’t any data available for Canada’s other provinces, it’s safe to assume that roughly tens of thousands of uninsured and underinsured motorists are using the said country’s roads every day. Unfortunately, you don’t want an insured motorist to hit your vehicle since it’s both absurd and unrealistic at the same time. What you can do instead is to ensure that you’re carrying underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage whenever you’re driving, and the above-listed reasons should be more than enough for you to take out one as soon as possible.
If you want to have information on the legal implications of carrying underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage when driving, you can click here.
PaulineGriggs
Pauline Griggs is an experienced law and automotive writer currently writing on another large project. Her know-how on the law for more than 10 years has 
allowed her to insert nuggets of useful wisdom for her readers. Pauline is not just a lawyer, she is also an artist. She loves painting nature when she has free time.