What is Liability Insurance?
It is the coverage
that a person purchases from an insurance company to protect them
in case they are at fault in an accident. It protects them not
only from someone that they may hit in their vehicle, but it also
protects them in case they themselves cause an accident and there
are passengers in their own vehicle.
Since our office handles many personal injury
cases representing only Plaintiffs, we look at liability from
a different standpoint. Typically, in an accident we will look
first to the liability policy that should have been purchased
by the person who caused the accident. In multi-car collisions,
we will be looking at all liability policies for any person that
we believe may be responsible for the accident.
In
Oklahoma, state law requires that all persons have liability insurance.
Oklahoma law requires that they have at least $10,000/$20,000
in coverage. Any time you look at a liability insurance policy,
you will notice that it has three numbers. Usually these numbers
will be represented as follows: 10/20/10, 25/50/25, 50/100/25,
or 100/300/100. These numbers are common. The first number stands
for $10,000, the number 20 stands for $20,000, etc. The first
number in this sequence stands for the amount of money available
to any one person in an accident. For Personal injuries, the second
number stands for the total amount of money available for all bodily
injury claims in an accident regardless of the number of people injuried.
For example, in a 10/20/10 policy - if there are
two people in a car and they are both injured, each will have
$10,000 available because there is a $10,000 per person limit,
and the max per accident is $20,000. However, if there are three
people in a car, the most that can be obtained
from the accident is still $20,000. If all of the parties are injured,
then it may be a question of whether or not there is enough coverage
to compensate them for their injuries. Therefore, it is important
to always know how much insurance is available to the client in
any given accident.
The insurance available may consist of one or more
liability polices as well as one or more uninsured motorist policies
and/or medical pay policies. When there are multiple policies of issue
there are curtain procudures that must be done to take advantage of these policies.
In a policy with limits of 10/20/25, the last number
represents the amount available for property damage. In this scenario,
the policy has $25,000 available for property damage. If the property
damage is only $10,000, the remaining $15,000 may not be used
for the bodily injury claim or for any other reason. However,
the property damage claim consists not only of the property damage
to the vehicle but also any rental car expense and towing expense.
Keep in mind that the adjuster handling the
liability claim has relatively no duty to deal fairly nor do they
have to deal at all. Except for requirements by the Insurance
Commissioner’s office upon those adjusters, they are given
a free hand to handle to cases as they choose. They are free to
advise that they simply don’t believe some aspect of the
case and refuse to offer any money. Don't deal with adjusters yourself.
Giving a recorded statement, signing a medical authorization may hamper
the claim from being resolved to your satisfaction.
If you've been in an accident and it wasn't your fault contact us.
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