Uninsured and Underinsured Claims

What happens when there is no insurance or not enough insurance? So that’s where we have our uninsured or underinsured claims. So, if the defendant has no insurance at all, you have a claim against your own client’s insurance company for uninsured motorist coverage. The minimum in Missouri is $25,000. So, in Illinois, an underinsured claim, you have to arbitrate; you don’t have the right to go sue the insurance company if they deny it. You’re forced to arbitrate, or there’s a mechanism, the statute say that they can put it in their insurance policies and most do. Not so in Missouri, right? So, you have an uninsured claim against your own client’s insurance company. And, then the question becomes whether that will stack and everybody talks about stack and I put a bunch of stacking cases here, not everybody, but it’s interesting. So the insurance companies have a limited downside, so they can deny uninsured and underinsured claims and not pay them because let’s say they have a $150,000 claim, that’s the limit of their liability, so you can go to trial. I tried one case one time. I got 425 grand. I collected 150 because their downside, their exposure was limited, was capped with the amount of insurance. Now you can sort of vexatious claim which gives you a 20% bonus in attorney’s fees. You’re gonna ascertain the common- law bad faith claim. You can do other things to marginally increase that, but we do encounter insurance all the time that don’t pay. What you think, you’re like, “Hey, the guy didn’t have insurance. I got an uninsured claim against my client’s own insurance company. Oh, that’s going to be easy.” Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Those can vigorously be defended as well.

How do you stack? So, the way you stack is, it’s whatever policy your one insured has, so if you have three cars on your policy, you stack the minimum coverage of $25,000 three times. If you only have one car, you only have one, right? So you can stack that, and it’s automatic. The case is used to say, “There are ambiguities in the policies,” but basically latest cases say, and these are always changing, and the way it would work, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court would find one provision, would be ambiguous, and then State Farm and American Family would change their policies and stuff, but we’re kind of in an area now where it’s pretty clear, so that’s gonna be stacked…

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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