What Does Your Texas Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Insurance Cover?

I am beating my head against a wall talking to an insurance company this morning.

Here’s the situation:  My client is a professional driver  (I won’t tell you what kind).  While driving on the job, he was hit by someone and seriously injured. 

In this situation, there are three potential places where an injured person can make a claim.

First, they can obviously make a claim against the driver that caused the wreck.

Second, an injured person can make a claim against any uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage that applies to the vehicle that the injured person is in at the time of the wreck.  Here, my client can make a claim on any um/uim policy that covers the vehicle he was driving.

Third, (and this is where it gets tricky and caused my headache) an injured person can make a claim against the person’s own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage for any personal vehicle where the person is the named insured.  As I’ve explained on this blog a number of times, your personal policy um/uim policy covers you whenever you are injured in a vehicle wreck caused by an uninsured or underinsured motorist, whether you are in your own car, someone else’s car, riding a bike, walking along the street, or even sitting on your front porch.

And that brings us to today.  I have spent 20 or so minutes on hold trying to explain this concept to various insurance company representatives, only to be told that they “don’t have anything to do with a wreck involving my client’s” work vehicle. 

They don’t get it.

And it makes me wonder how many people they and other insurance companies are ripping off.  This time, they may just not understand the law, but I’m confident that there are other carriers that might know the coverage applies and mislead their insureds, who don’t know any better. 

And then it goes to the insurance agent who sells the policy.  Do they understand this distinction?  What are they telling their customers?

This is just another example of why it’s so important to hire an attorney who knows the area of the law and to make sure that you have a good agent.