Tragedy strikes.\u00a0 You seriously injure or kill someone while you are driving.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t mean to, but the injury or death is your fault.\u00a0 What do you do?<\/p>\n
First, call your insurance agent or insurance company and report the claim.\u00a0 Find out how much liability insurance coverage you have.\u00a0 If you only purchased the amount required by law, you only have $25,000 worth of coverage.\u00a0 This will NOT be enough to fairly compensate the people you injured or killed.\u00a0 If you have less than $250,000 of insurance coverage, chances are it won\u2019t be enough.\u00a0 If you have assets of any kind (a house, savings, income, investments, etc.) you will probably have to forfeit some of your personal assets to fairly compensate the people you injured.<\/p>\n
If this happens to you, you should also hire a private attorney (in addition to the one the insurance company hires for you) to serve as \u201cexcess counsel\u201d to help protect your assets, to make sure that your insurance company is fairly and promptly resolving the injured party\u2019s claims, and to help you negotiate a settlement from your own assets.\u00a0 The attorney hired by the insurance company will only represent you up to the extent of your insurance coverage.\u00a0 Your insurance company will advise you to hire private counsel to protect you.\u00a0 It is important to select an \u201cexcess counsel\u201d who is an experienced personal injury attorney well versed in insurance law who understands the duties owed to you by your own insurance company and who knows how to accurately value and assess the injuries you caused.\u00a0 At Nelson Boyd, we routinely represent people who lack sufficient insurance coverage to adequately protect their assets.<\/p>\n
Of course, if you have no insurance coverage at all, the situation is even more serious, regardless of whether you have personal assets.\u00a0 Your driver\u2019s license will be revoked, you will be fined for not purchasing automobile liability insurance, and you will be personally responsible for all injuries you caused, even if the person you injured had uninsured motorist coverage (their insurance company will pursue you to reimburse it).<\/p>\n
To prevent against putting your personal assets at risk, take the following steps:<\/p>\n
1. Talk to your insurance agent about the nature and amount of your personal assets and ask what type of coverage they recommend.<\/p>\n
2. Purchase more than the minimum amount of liability insurance coverage required by the State.<\/p>\n
3. Purchase an \u201cumbrella policy\u201d which will float on top of your automobile and homeowner\u2019s insurance and provide you with additional insurance benefits in the event of a catastrophic injury.\u00a0 There are different types of umbrella policies available, depending on the insurance policy, but you should be able to purchase $1 million umbrella policy relatively inexpensively.<\/p>\n