motorcycle Archives - Attorney Jim Desomond

Motorcycle Road Rage Accident in the News Leads to Questions of Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage

How important is uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in Kentucky and Indiana? I was just on the Internet reading about an automobile accident that was the result of road rage. Basically, a motorcyclist kicked the door of a moving automobile, while both vehicles were traveling at highway speeds. The car swerved in the direction of the motorcyclist and ultimately lost control hitting several other vehicles and causing at least one to overturn.

The motorcyclist fled the scene of the wreck and the police do not know his identity or anything about his possible insurance coverage. Perhaps both the motorcyclist and the car driver were committing acts of road rage. At this point, it is clear that at least the motorcyclist was.

From a legal perspective, this car wreck clearly illustrates the need to have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on any vehicle you operate. For example, we don’t know who the motorcyclist is. So obviously, we can’t present a claim against his insurance coverage. This means that for any fault that might be assigned to the motorcyclist, we don’t have a source to recover from and may have to pay our damages out of our own pocket.

Further, even if we discover who the motorcyclist is, his insurance company might argue his act of road rage was an intentional act. Car insurance policies will cover negligence but typically exclude from coverage the damages arising from an intentional act. Lastly, even if we discover who the motorcyclist was, his actions caused damage to multiple vehicles and their passengers. There is no guarantee that he purchased enough liability insurance to cover all the claims, whether they are for injuries or property damage, to satisfy all the claims.

So as much as consumers don’t want to hear this, to be truly safe, you have to purchase the right kind of car insurance for your own for your own vehicle(s) before a car wreck ever occurs. In addition, you have to assume that the at-fault driver will have no insurance or not enough insurance.

If I represented someone who was injured in this car wreck, I would be looking to their own automobile insurance coverage, or the insurance for the vehicle they were riding in, to cover their damages. In this instance, I would be looking to my client’s collision coverage to cover the damage to his vehicle, med-pay or no-fault coverage to cover his medical bills and uninsured motorist coverage to cover his claim for pain and suffering. My hope would be that prior to the car wreck, my client had purchased at least $100,000 per person of uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.

Now, I admit that I blog a lot on the need for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage of at least $100,000 per person. Further, every time I raise this issue, I get one or two people who make comments like “ambulance chaser”. To put it respectfully, get your head out of the box!

The need for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage exists because there is no guarantee in the law that the at-fault driver always has insurance, as they are legally required to do so. Further, in 1976, the Kentucky Legislature established that drivers had to have at least $25,000 in insurance coverage per person. Today, it takes $108,753 to have the same buying power as $25,000 did in 1976. However, for over 40 years now, Kentucky has not required an at-fault driver to have more insurance than $25,000 per person.

Very simply, every vehicle you own should have at least $100,000 per person of uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on its insurance policy. If you don’t’ want to use an attorney to pursue these types of claims, you don’t have to. If you don’t even want to make a personal injury claim under these types of insurance policies, you don’t have to. However, if you put these types of insurance on your vehicle(s) before the car wreck ever occurs, you and your family have OPTIONS and choices YOU can make. Otherwise, you allow people like the motorcyclist who fled the scene of the wreck to make these choices for you.

Passengers Injured on a Motorcycle

As an experienced Kentucky and Indiana personal injury attorney I can tell you passengers injured on a motorcycle typically have a personal injury claim against the motorcycle rider or the other vehicle that hit the motorcycle. Motorcycle accidents happen quickly and usually result in serious injuries since there is less protection than a car. A car changes lanes without warning, or pulls out in front of you leaving a motorcyclist nowhere to go. I’ve seen enough injured victims of motorcycle wrecks to know how dangerous an accident can be. This is especially true for passengers on a motorcycle. You may not see it coming and the next thing you know, you’re recovering from a surgery laying in a hospital room.

If there is any good news for an injured passenger it is this: you typically have a valid injury claim. Your source of recovery might be the insurance carrier for the motorcycle, the automobile or even your own car insurance.

If the accident was caused by another car or truck, a lawsuit can hold the driver of the car financially responsible for what has happened to you. If the accident was caused by the driver of the motorcycle, his or her accident insurance may be primary source of recovery for your injuries. I know, you may not want to sue your close friend or a significant other but, you may have little choice. The fact is I will most likely be pursuing their insurance coverage and not them personally. That’s why they have insurance, and you deserve to recover for your costs and expenses. Moreover, there is no reason your financial planning should be ruined by large medical bills because of the negligence of another driver.

Many people are surprised to learn that their own auto insurance may also be a source of recovery. If the person who caused the accident does not have any insurance or enough insurance for your medical bills or to the cover the value of your personal injury claim, your own automobile insurance policy may provide uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage; which provides additional insurance for your injuries if the at-fault driver was not insured or did not have enough insurance. You may recall that I recommend that you have at least $100,000 per person of uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on every motor vehicle you own.

Passengers injured on a motorcycle typically have a personal injury claim, and I can help. If you were injured on a motorcycle, call me on my phone and speak with me personally at [number]. Let me discuss with you how insurance may cover your injuries or how we can get your medical bills paid. That’s my job. Motorcyclists and their passengers have enough to worry about as they recover from the accident. You can entrust your injury claim to me, so that you can focus on recovering from what has happened.

Motorcycle Wreck in Indiana: Some immediate legal issues to address.

I had a phone call the other day in regard to a motorcycle wreck that happened in Corydon, Indiana. While I had about a thirty-minute phone call with the injured motorcyclist, I have not signed him up as a client yet. Nevertheless, I wanted to share with you some of the issues that are immediately present for motorcycle accidents, or car wrecks, occurring in Indiana.

First, in Indiana, drivers are only required to insurance coverage of at least $25,000 per person or $50,000 per wreck. As a result, when the motorcyclist told me had been hospitalized for several days following the wreck, I was immediately concerned as to whether the at-fault driver had enough insurance coverage just to satisfy his medical bills, much less his claim for pain and suffering.

Second, I told him to immediately reserve any med-pay coverage he has on his motorcycle insurance. In short, if the hospital bill is $40,000 and he only had $10,000 in med-pay, I don’t want the hospital to grab the $10,000 in med-pay and still assert a claim for a $30,000 unpaid balance. While it does not always happen this way, I would try to get the hospital bill paid by the health insurance carrier for the motorcyclist. This way, the $40,000 bill will hopefully be reduced to 30% to 50% of the original billed amount, $12,000 to $20,000. While the health insurance has a right to recover what they paid from the personal injury settlement (known as a subrogation claim), I want to use that $10,000 in med-pay to satisfy the health’s subrogation claim that in theory would much less. In essence, we have taken a dollar bill and stretched the heck out of it. By doing so, we have potentially decreased the amount of medical bills that have to be paid out of the motorcyclist’s recovery and consequently, increased the amount recovered by the motorcyclist for his pain and suffering claim.

Further, we immediately began to talk about underinsured motorist coverage on both his motorcycle and his automobile insurance. While typically automobile insurance carriers have policy provisions that exclude injuries that occur while riding a motorcycle, you have to check all possible sources of recovery when it appears that the value of the personal injury claim may exceed the available insurance coverage. The problem with underinsured motorist coverage in Indiana is that the motorcycle rider can only collect underinsured motorist coverage to the extent the at-fault driver does not have as much insurance coverage as you do. In other words, if the at-fault driver has $50,000 in insurance coverage and the injured motorcyclist has $100,000 of underinsured motorist coverage, your personal injury settlement would consist of $50,000 in recovery from the at-fault driver and $50,000 of underinsured motorist coverage. So even though you think you paid for $100,000 of underinsured motorist coverage on your own insurance policy, you find out that you can only make a claim for half that amount. This is a great example of how the law is not fair.

Lastly, I told the motorcyclist to make sure he fully considered the attorney’s fee he would owe in this matter. If an attorney charges him a 33.33% attorney’s fee, it could end up that the attorney fee’s might be $33,333 and yet because of the medical bills, the client might recover less than that amount. In my office we have an unwritten policy that prevents this from happening in non-litigation cases. However, whether it is through a reduced attorney’s fee up front or a policy favoring the client in regard to the reduction of the medical expenses, this is a consideration the motorcyclist has to consider when evaluating who to hire as a personal injury lawyer.

Tag: motorcycle

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