Boise Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Lawyers

Are there special rules that apply to a situation where you’re in a car crash, the other driver is at fault, and that driver does not have enough insurance to cover the value of your claim? Yes, there are special rules involved in those types of situations.

First, understand that you are actually entitled to sue the individual not only for their insurance up to their limits, but also personally for the value of your claim. While you have that perfect right, however, if the person has no financial stability or ability to satisfy the value of your claim, then you may have a claim that’s not worth pursuing. That’s the first question you have to ask yourself: Does the defendant have the financial wherewithal to satisfy judgment over and above their insurance limits?

If they don’t, then that triggers either an underinsured motorist claim under your own policy, or, if the other driver had no insurance at all, an uninsured motorist claim under your own policy. Idaho law requires you to have, if you have a policy at all, uninsured motorist coverage. You don’t have to have underinsured motorist coverage, but most policies are sold with both benefits. Those claims are pursued directly against the insurance company, your own insurance company, for what would have been the value of the claim against the at-fault driver.

Insurance companies have lots of lawyers on retainer and they have seriously experienced lawyers who do this as a profession, so if you have such a claim, you, too, want to have an experienced lawyer on your side who has a track record of actually pursuing such claims and actually going to trial or hearing over such claims. You want them on your side. You want to level the playing field. You want somebody who has the track record of success in pursuing such claims.

Our firm has been doing this for more than 50 years, at this point. If you have such a claim, please feel free to call us anytime. We all work closely together and all do the same type of work.

What should you look for in the way of an attorney to handle an uninsured motorist claim? The answer to that question would be to find a lawyer that actually has the experience of being a trial lawyer in front of whoever is going to be the one who makes the decision, whether it’s a jury or an arbitration panel. In uninsured motorist cases, the insurance policies typically have a clause that says those are subject to arbitration as opposed to jury trials, but it’s still a trial, and you need a serious trial lawyer who has actual experience doing trials to assist you in pursuing the claim successfully.

You also want to look for someone who has got the actual experience of dealing with the insurance companies. The insurance companies know who out there actually does jury trials and does actual trials, and they know who doesn’t. It’s important for you to have an attorney that does have the experience and the command of the insurance company’s attention. Our firm, for example, has been pursuing uninsured motorist claims in front of either juries or arbitration panels for well over 50 years.
If you have such a claim, it’s the kind of claim that requires seriously experienced counsel because the insurance company – whether you’re dealing with the insurance company directly on uninsured motorist claims – has serious attorneys on their payroll. You definitely would like to have somebody who has a comparable level of experience for pursuing uninsured motorist claims successfully. If you are looking for an attorney and you would like to talk, please call any of the lawyers in our firm today because we all do the same work and we all do it together.

We are often asked whether somebody should have underinsured motorist coverage under their policy. It’s an interesting question. First, understand that Idaho law requires anybody who has a motor vehicle policy of insurance to include uninsured motorist coverage benefits. It’s absolutely required by statute. It’s not required, however, by statute for insurance policies to also provide underinsured motorist coverage benefits, that’s where the at-fault driver has insurance but doesn’t have enough. The short answer to the question of whether you should have underinsured motorist coverage is a very clear and unequivocal yes.

People often ask this question too late. They have already been involved in an accident and do not have enough insurance to cover your claims. That’s the situation you want to avoid. It’s a bad situation that could turn a badly injured situation into an even worse one, financially. You should absolutely provide yourself with underinsured motorist coverage for the maximum amount that you can afford. It’s needed in Idaho, and it’s something that you are very much cautioned to get immediately if you don’t have it.

Whether or not you should talk to your insurance company if you have an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim to make is a serious question. When the situation involves the insurance company for the at-fault driver, the answer is definitely no. Under your own policy, however, you’re going to have some language that is going to say something to the affect that you have a duty to cooperate with your own insurance company. They get the right to step into the shoes of the driver who was at fault.

In that sense, of course, they’re adverse to you, but they also have a relationship with you that is called a fiduciary relationship. It’s an important relationship. They’re supposed to take your interests and not treat you like an enemy. Nevertheless, you are up against an insurance company of your own that is going to have counsel that is very experienced in dealing with such claims, and, in your case, you will need experienced counsel to pursue such claims. You’ll have to talk to them to a certain extent, before you hire a lawyer, because of this duty to cooperate. That also means that once you have counsel, you no longer should be speaking with them. You will under no circumstances, in fact, speak with them; your lawyer will speak for you. To that end, you want to find the most experienced lawyer you can find.

Our firm has been doing this for over 50 years, at this point. We have the experience to bring to the table and a track record of success as good as anyone’s, if not better than everyone’s. Get the insurance company on board as soon as possible to protect your legal rights. The more you talk to the insurance company, the worse it is for you. They are not your friend at this point, even though they’re supposed to be. If you’re in such a situation, please feel free to call us right away. We all do the same type of work, we all work very closely together, and we have a significant amount of legal horsepower here to bring to the table.

What happens when an at-fault driver injures somebody who is a passenger in your vehicle? In other words, not injuring you but injuring the passenger in the vehicle and that driver that was at fault either doesn’t have any or doesn’t have enough insurance to cover the passenger’s claim? The passenger does have the right, of course, to file a lawsuit or a claim against the at-fault driver for whatever insurance monies they have, and they have the right to at least seek to recover all damages that the value of the claim is worth against that at-fault driver, assuming they have the financial wherewithal to pay it all off over and above their insurance limits. Unfortunately, most people that have a small amount of insurance also do not have the financial ability to cover the claim. The passenger has an absolute right to sue the other driver, just like you as a driver would have against the at-fault driver.

Also, the passenger in your vehicle is entitled to be covered under your policy, whether you have underinsured motorist coverage or uninsured motorist coverage. Your passenger has a right to seek recovery under those benefits of the insurance policy. Your coverage extends to not only you but all those that are traveling with you. That passenger might have their own policy for uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage for which they can seek to recover. The passenger is not without legal avenues to pursue.

There are some troubled waters, of course, that the passenger will face. It’s not easy to deal with these insurance companies directly or this adverse driver who was at fault. If a passenger is in such a situation where they’re injured, they may even be in a situation where they need to make a claim directly against you, as the driver, if there’s any claim that you were at fault. If such a claim exists for a passenger, if they’re injured, it requires someone who has the trial experience of having previously successfully pursued such claims. They’re a little convoluted, they’re pretty much almost impossible to do on your own, and so it requires the best, most experienced lawyer that you could find.

Our law firm has been handling such claims successfully so for over 50 years, and we do have that experience to bring to the table, which is what you need on your side because the other side is definitely going to have lawyers with that experience. If you have such a claim, please feel free to call any of the lawyers at my firm because we all do the same type of work and we all work very, very closely together.

It can cause a person’s stomach to drop when they learn that the other driver who caused a wreck is uninsured. We are all conditioned to think that the other people that are on the road are insured and will have insurance to take care of the damages caused when they make a mistake driving. What do you do if they are uninsured? That actually requires preparation ahead of time. One, it’s a criminal claim against them, and they may ultimately be prosecuted, and you may ultimately get some kind of restitution order. If a person is not buying insurance for their car that they’re driving, the chances of you actually recovering money from them is not just small, it’s minuscule. What you want to do ahead of time is purchase your own uninsured motorist coverage.

Uninsured motorist coverage and its companion, underinsured motorist coverage, are coverages that you purchase to protect you in a Boise, Idaho car accident with an uninsured motorist. That way, you have insurance to pay the bills and to provide compensation for all your losses. Our advice is to buy as much uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage as your budget will reasonably allow you to do. It’s relatively cheap coverage, and it’s there to protect you. It’s like putting on your seat belt; it’s just something that you should do to take care of yourself. Around five to eight percent of the drivers out there are not insured, and, while the state may put them in jail for that or charge them a fine for that, that doesn’t take care of your medical bills, your wage losses, or your pain and suffering.

If you’re concerned about an uninsured motorist claim, or you need to make an uninsured motorist claim against your own auto insurance policy, or you want to talk about uninsured motorist coverage and underinsured motorist coverage to help you decide how much to buy for yourself, even if you’ve not been in a wreck yet, we’ll be happy to talk to you about those things and give you some guidance and discuss your situation with you. We don’t see insurance, but we want you to have it. Give us a call if we can provide any assistance in this area.

What is the difference between uninsured motorist coverage benefits and underinsured motorist coverage benefits? The words kind of say the answer. If you’ve been in a car wreck and the at-fault driver is somebody who has no insurance at all, then you look to cover under your uninsured motorist coverage benefit of your policy. Your policy will have certain limits for each such claim, just like the at-fault driver does.

If you have such a claim, you need to understand that this is going to be directly against one of these big, bad insurance companies, and they’ve got big, bad lawyers that are looking to defend such claims. If you have such a claim, you would want the best, most experienced trial lawyer that you can get and one with the experience of pursuing claims directly against the insurance companies for either uninsured motorist coverage benefits or underinsured motorist coverage benefits. It’s your policy and you’re entitled to those benefits. You want somebody fighting for you that’s in your camp, not in theirs, because they, at that point, are not your friend— they’re your enemy.

If you have such a claim, you want to have somebody who has the experience and the track record of successfully pursuing such claims. Our firm has been doing this for longer than everyone, probably. Myself personally, I have been pursuing such claims for almost 30 years at this point. If you have such a claim, please feel free to call my personally, anytime, or any of the other lawyers at our law firm because we all do the same work and we all work very closely together. Please, call anytime.