Important Lesson about Uninsured Motorist Coverage

We have a client who suffered significant injuries in a car wreck while driving his mother’s vehicle. The other driver had minimum insurance and his mother had $50,000.00 in underinsured coverage. Our client had $500,000.00 in underinsured motorist coverage on his auto policy. Here’s some links to blogs and videos on underinsured coverage.

BUT – there was an exclusion in our client’s underinsured motorist policy which excluded coverage if there was similar coverage on his mom’s policy. We argued in the Eastern District Court of Missouri that the $450,000.00 difference in coverage demonstrated that the policies were not similar and the policy was vague under Missouri law.

The Court looked at the only Missouri case on point Naeger v. Farmers Insurance Company and found that in such exclusions “similar insurance” means any applicable underinsurance coverage. So our client is stuck with the lower limit.

We fought hard for our client. In Missouri if you are driving another vehicle with underinsured motorist coverage, your underinsured motorist coverage will most likely not apply, no matter how high your coverage and premiums are.

This is important to remember because this was not pointed out to our client when he bought this expensive coverage from Farmers.

Gary Burger

Founder | Injury Attorney
Gary Burger has dedicated his career to standing up against bullies. The founder and principal attorney of Burger Law | St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyer has helped hundreds of Missouri and Illinois individuals and families recover th …
Years of experience: 30 years
Location: St. Louis, MO

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