400 N Walker Ave #130, Oklahoma City, OK Phone: (405) 605-2426
Oklahoma does not require Uninsured/Underinsured (UM) Motorist Insurance coverage, but I strongly recommend you get it anyway.
Why? Because when an at-fault driver hits you and they don’t have enough insurance coverage to pay your damages, your UM insurance covers your damages up to your coverage limits. Do you want to count on every other driver having adequate insurance, or any insurance at all?
Smart drivers cover themselves and get UM.
Examples of How UM Works
Say you have a car wreck where you suffer $60k in damages, and the other, at-fault, driver only has $25k in bodily injury insurance (the insurance that pays for your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering). Oklahoma still (since 2004) only requires $25k/50k/25k in coverage. This means the insurer will only pay out up to $25k per person and $50k total (if multiple people are injured).
Here is how the scenario would play out if:
You Have No UM Insurance
You collect $25k from the other driver’s insurance, leaving you with $35k in unpaid losses. If you do not have health insurance, you can still owe your medical providers a lot of money. You can get a judgment against the other driver for the “excess judgment” of $35k. Still, most people won’t have any money to pay that judgment, especially those with the bare minimum in bodily injury insurance coverage.
You have $25,000.00 in UM insurance.
In this scenario, you would recover under the underinsured motorist portion of your UM coverage. On to the example:
You collect $25k from the other driver’s insurer and $25k (your policy limit) from your UM insurer. You still come up short $10k, which, while not as bad as example A, will leave you wishing you had more UM coverage.
You Have $50k in UM insurance.
You collect $25k from the other driver’s insurer and $35k from your UM insurer. Why not $50k from your insurance company? Because you only had $60,000.00 in total damages, and you are now fully compensated.
Feel good about yourself for having the right amount of coverage.
Get Uninsured Motorist Coverage.
It’s affordable and get as much as you can. It’s cheaper, per dollar, than what your liability coverage will cover.
I have had many clients who could have recovered more money if they had only had adequate UM insurance. For some of them, it could have been a lot more money. Hopefully, you are not in that boat right now. If you are, all you can do is buy UM now to cover you in the event of another accident.