Uninsured Driver Hit You? Don't Pay for Their Mistake

You're sitting there confused and frustrated because you did everything right after the crash, but now you're being told the other driver didn't have any insurance. You're wondering, what happens now? Do I just eat the cost of everything? And here in Indiana, if you don't act quickly or understand your options, that's exactly what could happen. No compensation, no medical coverage, no accountability. I'm Chad Romey, and this is Chris Blackburn, and we're personal injury attorneys here in Indiana, and we've helped hundreds and hundreds of people navigate situations just like this. In this video, we'll explain exactly how to recover damages when the at-fault driver is uninsured, including the steps that most people miss that can cost them their entire claim, so you don't get left paying out of pocket for someone else's mistake, and you walk away with the support and settlement you actually deserve. Chris, we're talking about cases where there's an at-fault party, and you find out later there's no insurance to cover. What are we looking at here? First thing would be shock, because when you deliver that news to your client, inevitably, there's always an element of frustration. Even after we try to get the cases submitted to negotiate, or we've done our initial investigation and had that first call with your client to say, we haven't been able to find insurance, or they told the cop that they did have insurance, but we can't find an active policy. We tried, but we can't find it. Most of our clients are frustrated. Yeah, absolutely. I have insurance. What feels like they should have insurance too, but in reality, there's a lot of people that don't have insurance, right? Some stats say that nearly 15 or 16 percent of Indiana drivers are driving around with no insurance, which is terrifying. I understand why. Either they just can't afford it, or they just don't want to pay for it, or they get it, go register their vehicle at the B&B, and then let the policy lapse. Yeah, insurance is expensive, and I understand why people don't get it, but it is illegal. You have to drive with coverage, and it's for situations like this, where if you cause harm to somebody else, you should be responsible for paying for what they're going through. Unique fact, because Chad and I were prepping this morning, and we both looked at the statistics, and it's about one in six, and we both said, is that right? That seems really high. So inevitably, I don't know where you searched, I got on Claude this morning and asked Claude, and Claude basically told me the same thing about 14, 15, 16 percent. Yeah, and I bet if we go back and look at our new clients coming in, it probably is about one in six that the other party is not insured. So does that mean that if you get hit by somebody who is uninsured, that you're out of luck? No, it doesn't. It's so long as you are buying insurance. So if you buy insurance for your vehicle by Indiana law, UM or uninsured coverage is included by default. So in Indiana, our General Assembly, long story short, the insurance that you buy is going to include it unless you have a discussion with your agent, and you waive, and not only waive or reject, you actually have to sign off. Our laws are actually pretty favorable. Right, so our laws are trying to encourage people to have that type of coverage, and if you don't have that type of coverage, normally it's because you've had a discussion and have decided against it, and then actually signed and said, I don't want this coverage. And the only reason people are rejecting that type of coverage is that they don't want to pay for it. You have to pay extra for it, because there are people out there that are driving without insurance, so the insurance to cover for those people does cost something. So uninsured motorist protection, we're really talking about what type of coverage is out there to protect me as the injured person. You know, I'm getting medical bills, I'm out of work, so I don't have that income coming in. That's what that uninsured motorist protection is looking to cover. However, you also, on your typical policy, many times, will have collision coverage. So your car is damaged, the other side doesn't have insurance, and so even if you don't have uninsured protection, you may very well have collision coverage, which means your car can get fixed or replaced. So there's two types of coverage that you can look at here. A couple quick points on the uninsured motorist coverage. We like to say that they step into the shoes of the defendant. So are they leading your own insurance company? Correct. So our clients get more frustrated when they find out that their insurance isn't paying the medical bills. Well, I've got insurance, why isn't my insurance paying the bills? And so the theory is that your insurance company, under the uninsured portion, gets to step into the shoes of the defendant. It's kind of a hard concept or reality for a lot of our clients. I've been with Erie for 30 years, what do you mean they're not going to pay my medical bills? Well, I'm not really saying they're not going to pay them, they're just going to dispute them. They're going to dispute your case as if they were defending or as if their insured was the defendant. So you need confidence. As if the other party was the... Yeah. So also, if your insurance company pays you out on an uninsured claim, your insurance company has the right to go after the other party, the uninsured party, to get reimbursed. And so the relationship or the agreement between you and your own insurance company has to be at a fair amount. Because that third party, the at-fault party, could be responsible for paying your insurance company back. So they can't just write a blank check and then go get that money from the at-fault guy. 100%. Yeah. So a lot of people... I have this conversation all the time when I notice that the other party doesn't have insurance. Say, well, do you have uninsured coverage on your policy? A lot of people just don't know, right? What is that? Yeah, what's that? And so they'll say, well, I'm letting people know if they have full coverage or not. Full coverage is a very generic term. It doesn't mean a whole lot. It just means there are, in theory, each element of coverage that your insurance company can provide is going to be provided. And one of those is typically uninsured coverage. However, it doesn't mean it's for an unlimited amount. So you do want to know how much coverage you have. A minimum coverage in Indiana is $25,000. So if you have uninsured coverage, you have at least that amount. If you're in the market for buying insurance, buy as much uninsured or underinsured coverage as you can afford because in situations like this, $25,000, that's not a lot of coverage. It doesn't go very far if you're really hurt. How would you find if you have uninsured motorist coverage? Well, many times when you buy a policy, they're going to send you what's called a declarations page. And so it's going to have all the different elements of coverage on there. Frankly, a lot of clients don't know where their deck page even is. So if you can't find it, and if you don't know if you have the coverage, call your agent, call the insurance company just to say, hey, do I have this coverage? And they'll tell you. They'll send you over a new deck page if you don't have one already in possession. So what does it cover? What's the UM cover? Well, that's the nice thing about this type of coverage. I'm glad our state requires it because it covers everything that you could get from the potential tortfeasor or defendant, the person who was at fault. So we're talking things like medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, Chad, you talked about property damage, if that's part of your policy, lost wages, and then some of the more important or bigger elements, loss of future earnings capacity, permanent injury, scarring, pain and suffering, pain and suffering. It's going to cover all the damages that would be applicable to the defendant. So that's the nice thing that the insurance company still has the election to dispute causation and defend the case. So lots of times our clients will say, well, hey, I've got 50,000, I'll just take the 50,000. The case may be worth 5,000, but our clients, well, I paid for 50, I'll just take the 50. Yeah. You still have to prove the value of your claim. And that's where a lawyer can certainly help you out doing that. But there's a lot of, and we've gone through a lot of videos here where we've talked about how do you prove the value of the claim? We're not going to address that here, but a lot of different components go in there. Now, and this happens much more frequently than I'd like. If there are 15% of the people out there in Indiana driving with no insurance, sometimes those people get in an accident together. Or if there are 15% of the people without any insurance, there's a larger percentage of the people that have either no insurance or no uninsured coverage. And so sometimes those people get in an accident and there's just no insurance available for your losses. Hey, that guy was at fault. I don't have coverage on my own policy to cover me. What happens now? Do you have a claim? 60% of the time it works every time. Yeah, yeah, right. So you still have a claim. At all times, you have a claim against the at fault part, right? Whether they have insurance, you have insurance, you still have a claim over there. The question is, does it make sense to pursue it? It might feel right to pursue it, but how much money can you spend to go get a judgment, to file a lawsuit and get a judgment against that person? If they don't have the money to pay for insurance, they might not have the money to pay you for your claim. I probably have this conversation about once a week with my clients in terms of the lack of insurance. So the options would be to pursue a claim against the underinsured motorist carrier, their insurance company, or literally file suit and take the case all the way to trial and try to pursue a jury verdict, which then becomes a judgment. Just because you get a judgment doesn't mean you're going to get paid. People have insurance for a reason. So if you get a judgment, yeah, you might get a little piece of paper that says you won and you want X amount of dollars, but collection on the judgment is going to be usually pretty difficult unless the defendant has assets. Better if they're singled and their assets are in their name only. Or sometimes you're looking at potentially whether it's a viable estate. So I would say statistically 99% of the time there aren't any assets to go after. But we have had cases, both Chad and I, I think every lawyer in this law firm, we've had cases where the defendant has decided to pay personally. They've written the check themselves. Interesting scenario, Ryan had a case against a Motel 6 in South Bend. It appeared as if there wasn't insurance. They never responded to anything. We actually filed, we sued them. They never responded, never hired a lawyer. And then we were able to get a default judgment. And then all of a sudden the insurance company, I don't think the insurance company showed up, but I think Motel 6 came and said, hey, let's try to resolve this now that there's this judgment against their facility. Yeah, so it becomes a financial decision and it doesn't feel like it should be when somebody's at fault, driving around illegally with no insurance. It just feels very, very unfair when they harm you. And then you're left with, again, it is going to be a financial decision whether to pursue that person or not. And I've had some people say, make what I think to be is an unwise financial decision and file a lawsuit against that person, spend the money to go get a judgment against them on something that's largely gonna be uncollectible. And I get why they do it. I'm not faulting them for that, you're losing money in order to do that many times now. And if you get a judgment that's big enough, I've had this, I think we got like a $1.6 million judgment against somebody who had, my guy was injured in a dog bite and that's not an uninsured motorist claim, but there was no insurance to cover this dog bite. You got a $1.6 million judgment against them and they filed bankruptcy. And again, that wasn't his goal. His goal wasn't to put them through bankruptcy, but if you get a judgment for $1.6 million against you, and you start to see your wages garnished, that's a lifetime punishment. I mean, most people aren't gonna pay that off. And so you will see bankruptcy a lot of times. Going back to uninsured motorist claims, hit and run accidents, that other person might have insurance, but they hit you and then they flee. Those are treated as uninsured claims. And the really important thing about hit and run accidents is you have to contact your insurance company, your insurance company immediately, that day or the next day, because there are timeframes in which you can void your own coverage if you don't. A lot of triggers there with the hit and runs. Every policy is different, but generally you're gonna need some sort of proof. So contacting your insurance company immediately is the best practice. Call a police report. There may not be anything substantive on the police report, but at least there's a police report. If you know witnesses or aware of witnesses, you're gonna want that information. Some policies will require contact between the vehicles. Well, that may be harder to prove. I had a case very recently where State Farm disputed coverage because they alleged that there was no contact between the vehicles. The photographs we had showed some damage. However, my client also went into a guardrail. When she testified, she testified that she wasn't 100% certain that there was contact between the semi that merged over and her vehicle. However, she felt a bump prior to hitting the wall. That was enough to get past what we call summer judgment, where the judge could ultimately decide or throw the case out, and we were able to get that case settled. But I had some concerns on that case simply because the policy said, hey, you need to prove that there was contact between the vehicles. Good job to David in our office for writing that brief and arguing that motion. Yeah, so do you need a lawyer for an uninsured motorist client? I don't know that you need a lawyer for every case, Chad. I said that there are some cases you don't need a lawyer, but it's always wise to at least just talk to a lawyer about these situations, especially the earlier, the better. Especially when there could be stuff in your policy that voids your coverage if you don't jump through the right hoops. 100%. We take the approach that all of our consultations are free, whether it's five minutes on the phone or two hours in person. Just last week, sat down with a new prospective client, and it was mom and dad and a little bit older, but we sat down in our conference room and that meeting lasted over two hours. So they signed with us, but if they didn't, no harm, no foul. That's what we do here. So talk to a lawyer. If it's gonna be free, you might as well do it. And a lot of people are less, I guess they're a little bit hesitant to contact a lawyer when they're dealing with their own insurance company. You know, I've had, gosh, I've had State Farm for 30 years. Why would I need a lawyer? I mean, and they've, I got an accident four years ago where I bumped somebody and they replaced my bumper. Why would I need a lawyer here? What you have to remember is what Chris said earlier is in an uninsured claim, they're stepping into the shoes of the adult party. So they're defending the claim. And as you can probably tell, insurance companies have a profit motive. So they have a motive to pay less money. And that's, again, that's not a criticism of the insurance companies, how their business model, but don't believe that just because you've been a customer of theirs for a long time, that they're gonna do everything because with your best interest in mind, they're not physically or specifically defending, if you will, the other position, not yours. So you find out that you've been in an accident with a person who doesn't have insurance, what should you do? Some of the things that we've already covered this, but recap, call the police, gather your evidence, get witnesses, get their phone numbers, email addresses if they're there. If you're hurt, go get medical treatment, call the ambulance, go to the hospital, see your family doctor, perhaps a chiro. Get the attention you need because that's gonna be an element later on. Get your deck page, call your agent, get the deck page. If you have your insurance, pull it out of the filing cabinet and look at it and see what you're dealing with. And if you've got questions or if you don't have questions, call Blackburn Realty. We'll be sure to answer all your questions and point you in the right direction. And so you've just learned how to protect your rights if you're hit by an uninsured driver in Indiana. But what about specific injuries like back injuries? Those can be tricky and insurers often try to downplay them. So if you wanna make sure you know exactly what to do for your health and your claim, watch our next video, everything you need to know about back injuries after a car accident. It could save you a ton of stress and money down the line. So we'll see you over there.