What Does "Policy Limits" Mean in an Accident Case?

What Does “Policy Limits” Mean In An Accident Case?

Today we are going to talk about the term policy limits.

What Are Policy Limits And Why Are Policy Limits Important?

When we say policy limits we are talking about all of the insurance that the other driver has, so the person that hits you has an insurance policy. If they are in Louisiana and they have state minimum coverage then their policy limit is $15,000. That means that is all the money you can get from their insurance company.

Now there is a right to sue the driver past the amount of insurance they have but it can often be very difficult to recover money from an individual as opposed to an insurance company. Again if they were buying state minimum coverage they probably don’t have any money to satisfy judgment against them above the amount of their policy limits.

Are All Policy Limits The Same?

So far I have talked about state minimum coverage, but it is not the case that everybody has a $15,000 policy limits, some people have $25,000, $50,000, $100,000. If you’ve been in an accident with a commercial vehicle that vehicle probably has at least a $1,000,000 in coverage. If it’s a company they could have a $1,000,000 on the vehicle and they could have excess policy or what is called an umbrella policy that provides even more, so the policy limits can be quite high in every accident. It is important to know what the policy limits are because it lets you know how much money you can hope to recover.

UM And UIM Insurance

There are some other things you can do to increase policy limits, on your own you can buy um coverage, um is uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage and we advise all of our clients to buy this.

If someone hits you and they do not have insurance their policy limit is zero because they don’t have a policy so who would pay in that situation? Well, if you had UM coverage you could make a claim against your own insurance for your damages and for your car repair, your personal injury, stuff like that. Or, let’s say the person hits you and they had $15,000 worth of insurance but you were hurt pretty bad and your medical bills were $20,000, then you could claim onto your own UM coverage. So we recommend that everybody have UM coverage. In every accident, it’s going to be important to know what policy limits are at play. This is something that the insurance companies don’t often volunteer to tell you just what policy limit their driver had especially if you don’t have an attorney.

When you call an experienced attorney we have ways to find out the policy limits. If you have been in an accident and you want to know if there going to be enough money available to pay for your medical expenses, is there going to be enough money available to pay for you injury or my pain and suffering you should speak with an experienced accident attorney.

We are located in Baton Rouge; you are welcome to give us a call (225) 963-9638 we offer a no-cost consultation give us a call today and we can talk about your accident and what you might hope to recover.