Understanding Your Rights and How to Protect Yourself.

Consider this scenario: you’re driving along, minding your own business and stopped at a red light. Suddenly, your car is struck from behind by an out-of-control vehicle. Before you can even process what has happened, the offending driver quickly speeds away. There were no witnesses and no time to get the license plate number. You’re now left with a damaged vehicle, serious injuries, and seemingly no recourse for this mess.

Unfortunately, hit-and-run accidents like this can and do happen. Even if it wasn’t a hit-and-run accident, you may soon discover that the person who caused the accident either didn’t have insurance or didn’t have enough insurance to compensate you for your losses. After all, an estimated 8% of all motorists in Connecticut are driving right now without any automobile insurance, and even more are driving with only the bare minimum.

The good news is that there are steps you can take to protect yourself. By maintaining proper coverage on your own automobile insurance policy, you will have certain remedies for yourself and your loved ones. Still, it’s important to fully understand how your insurance coverage works before you find yourself in a severe accident and it’s too late to do anything about it.

 

First, Get a Police Report

Whenever you are involved in an automobile accident, you should call 911 and wait (patiently) for a police officer to arrive and investigate the scene. While this is not always convenient, an official accident report is invaluable when pursuing automobile insurance claims and any future litigation. The investigating officer will document all of the relevant details from the scene and will take initial statements from the drivers and any witnesses. In many instances, the officer will also determine who was responsible for causing the accident.

Even for a minor accident, you should resist the urge to simply “exchange information” and work things out later. Even when the other driver seems honest and admits fault at the scene, that story can often change a few days later. Moreover, the other driver may present you with insurance information that is expired or altogether fabricated. Thus, the best and perhaps the only way to establish a clear record of what happened is to call the police.

If you have been the victim of a hit-and-run or an uninsured motorist accident, a police report is even more essential since many insurance companies require police reports before processing claims.

 

Property Damage

If the diver that hits your vehicle has insurance, his or her company must pay for the cost of repairing your vehicle or the total loss value of your vehicle, whichever is less. Unfortunately, if you are the victim of a hit-and-run or if you are struck by an uninsured motorist, you must bear these costs yourself.

However, if you have collision coverage under your automobile insurance policy, you will be covered even in hit-and-runs and uninsured motorist accidents. Your own insurance company will pay the costs of repair or total loss value and the only expense that will fall on you will be your deductible, which must normally be paid out-of-pocket.

While collision coverage is entirely optional under Connecticut law, it remains the best way to protect your vehicle from hit-and-run accidents and accidents caused by uninsured motorists. It may be worth the extra insurance premiums for this coverage and for the added piece of mind that comes with it.

 

Bodily Injury (Medical Expenses / Lost Wages / Pain and Suffering)

Unlike the optional collision coverage, every automobile policy issued in the State of Connecticut must contain Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 38a-336. This means that if you are injured by a hit-and-run driver or a driver with no insurance, you can still pursue a claim through your own insurance company to recover your medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, etc.

At a minimum, every automobile insurance policy in Connecticut provides uninsured motorist coverage of $20,000 per person / $40,000 per accident. See C.G.S. § 38a-334-6; C.G.S. § 38a-372-1. This means the maximum that any one person can recover from a single accident would be $20,000 and the maximum that multiple persons can recover (combined) from that accident would be $40,000.

While $20,000 may seem like a lot of money at first glance, it’s important to put that sum into context. With the ever-rising costs of ambulance transportation, emergency room care, diagnostic tests, and physical therapy/chiropractic rehabilitative care, even a relatively minor car accident can result in a great deal of unpaid medical expenses. Add in lost wages and reasonable compensation for pain and suffering, and an individual’s claim can easily exceed $20,000.

In more severe car accidents, the resulting bodily injuries can be much, much worse. Consider surgeries, permanent injuries, paralysis, or even death – such cases are obviously worth far more than $20,000 and yet that is the maximum that drivers and passengers in Connecticut can recover under the default automobile insurance policy provisions.

Thus, the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones is to increase your own insurance policy’s Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM) coverage limits. While you should talk with an insurance representative to see how much coverage is right for you, it is absolutely worth boosting your policy’s UM/UIM coverage limits from the mere $20,000 / $40,000 to something more substantial.

 

Underinsured Motorist Coverage

As an added benefit, increasing your UM/UIM coverage limits will also increase your underinsured coverage. This means that you may recover additional sums after exhausting the smaller policy of the person who hit you. For example, if your case is worth $50,000 and the person that hit you only has a $20,000 policy, you can exhaust his $20,000 policy and still recover the additional $30,000 from your own policy . . . but only if you have purchased the additional coverage. Once again, having higher UM/UIM coverage limits is an important protection. The only way that you and your passengers can recover what you deserve is if there is sufficient coverage.

 

What If I Also Didn’t Have Automobile Insurance?

By now, this blog has made it abundantly clear that the best way to protect yourself and your family is to have an active automobile insurance policy with collision coverage and plenty of UM/UIM coverage. In addition to protecting you from hit-and-run motorists, uninsured motorists, and underinsured motorists, it’s also the law that every vehicle on the road must carry valid automobile insurance. If you chose to operate a motor vehicle without insurance, you can face significant criminal and civil penalties.

Even if you don’t think you have automobile insurance, there may be circumstances in which you are covered under someone else’s insurance policy, possibly a parent or an employer. You should always consult with an attorney to find out if there is any available automobile insurance coverage for your accident.

If there is no automobile insurance available, there is one final avenue to consider. The State of Connecticut Office of Victim Services provides some assistance for those who have been injured as a result of certain crimes, including hit-and-runs. Funds are available to pay medical expenses and lost wages only. The OVS does not cover property damage, pain and suffering losses, or attorney fees.

To apply, you will need a valid police report and a number of forms available at the OVS website. Under the OVS regulations, your own behavior cannot have contributed to the accident so your claim will likely be denied if you allowed your own automobile insurance to lapse. However, it would appear that the OVS will process claims for the passengers in your car. You should consult with an attorney or directly with the OVS to determine if you or your loved ones qualify for the program.

 

Conclusion

Even if you are the safest driver in the world, you can’t count on everyone else to be responsible. The unfortunate reality is many drivers do not carry sufficient insurance and some drive with no insurance at all. Therefore, best way to protect yourself and your loved ones is to carry plenty of insurance coverage on your own policy.

A good attorney can only get you the maximum recovery if there is adequate coverage. Make sure you have things settled before you find yourself in an accident.

 

You should always contact a licensed attorney to discuss any legal questions that you may have. The following blog post is intended as a general overview of automobile accidents in Connecticut and is not an attempt to offer specific legal advice.