UNINSURED MOTORIST ACCIDENT LAWYERS

Filing a claim against your own insurance company is often as adversarial as suing a third party. To succeed, you must meet specific legal criteria:

• Establishing Fault: You must prove that the other driver was primarily responsible for the accident.
• Physical Contact: For hit-and-run UM claims, California law generally requires actual physical contact between the vehicles.
• Timely Reporting: Most policies require you to notify them of a potential UM/UIM claim “promptly.” For hit-and-runs, a police report must typically be filed within 24 hours.
• Exhaustion of Limits (for UIM): You cannot file a UIM claim until you have officially settled for the entirety of the at-fault driver’s policy limits.

UM cases often result in higher settlements than third party cases (cases against another party’s insurance company) because under the law an insurance company is required to act in good faith when dealing with their own customer but does not have to act in good faith when dealing with a third party. Our Attorneys has done so many UM and UIM cases over the years the difference is very apparent.

One big advantage of UM/UIM over a third party case, is your case will be resolved by arbitration if it is not settled.  Our Attorneys has done many of these arbitrations with great success. They are faster and less expensive that a jury trial.