Legal Question in Insurance Law in Illinois

Re: Auto Insurance-Pain & Suffering, Ect.

As always there are many variables but I will give you some general advice.

In answering the question - I am assuming that you were driving an insured car and the other negligent driver was also driving an insured car.

If you are involved in an accident, the policy amount does not limit the amount that you can recover, it limits that amount that you can recover from the insurance company.

However, if the person who caused the accident does not have any visible means of paying a judgment in excess of the policy amount - you are often left chasing your tail trying to collect that sum.

A million dollar judgment against a high school student who does not have a trust fund or real property is not worth the proverbial paper it�s written on.

Anyone who operates a motor vehicle must have insurance coverage for liability (damage to others), many people also have �full coverage� (your insurance company will repair the car no matter whose fault), most people have some amount of medical payments coverage (medical bills) and most important for this question - almost everyone has �underinsured� motorist coverage, usually in the amount of their own liability coverage.

(Note - many times other members of your household may have �underinsured� motorist coverage under which you may be insured)

The state only requires a driver to have $20,000 in liability coverage. If an accident occurs that results in MORE than $20,000 in damage (or the policy dollar amount in question) then the �under�-insured motorist coverage kicks-in IF your �under� policy is a higher amount than the negligent driver�s liability coverage

(For example, you are hit by a driver with $50,000 coverage and your damages are $105,000. Your �under�insured policy is for $100,000. Therefore you file a claim with both insurance companies and eventually you collect $50,000 from the liable driver�s insurance company and $50,000 from your own insurance company for a total of the coverage you purchased = $100,000.)

Therefore, you ALWAYS have insurance coverage in the amount of insurance YOU buy.

So, the question is� how much coverage did YOU buy? That is the total amount that you can recover for your injuries from the insurance company.

If you did NOT buy sufficient underinsured coverage - how can you sue the state for your failure to protect yourself? How can you sue another insurance company? The short answer is that you CANNOT.

You CAN sue the other driver and not settle for the policy amount but rather seek a judgment in excess of the policy amount. However, to do so would require that the negligent party has sufficient assets to pay off any judgment you recovered.

(If you were a pedestrian the above information needs to be slightly modified and if a member of your household has a separate policy of auto insurance this information may also need to be supplemented)