Litigation

By: Stephen P. Lagoy

Stephen P. Lagoy

When someone asks, “How much insurance coverage do you have,” most people respond with the limits of their liability coverage. This coverage protects you from claims and lawsuits by others for automobile-related injuries that you may have caused. In essence, liability insurance protects other people from your negligence.  There is another type of coverage that protects you from the negligence of other drivers who don’t have any or adequate liability insurance coverage. This insurance is known as “uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage”. In my opinion, this is the most important automobile insurance coverage that you can have but it is often misunderstood or overlooked.  Consider that more than one in 13 vehicles that you will encounter on Pennsylvania highways will be totally uninsured! Many more vehicles lack adequate liability insurance. If you are injured by one of these vehicles, coverage for your damages will be non-existent or insufficient. That’s where your uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage comes into play. It protects you from these drivers by giving you the benefit of the coverage that they should have had on their automobiles. Your automobile insurance company must give you the opportunity to purchase uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage with limits as high as your liability insurance coverage. Yet many people either decline to purchase this coverage at all or select less coverage than they are allowed to purchase.  For more information on uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, contact our office.

By: Stephen P. Lagoy

Selecting “full tort” coverage gives you the unlimited right to sue for automobile-related non-economic damages such as pain and suffering caused by the carelessness of another driver. In contrast, “limited tort” coverage allows you to sue for these damages only if you suffer a “serious injury”. Under the law, “serious injury” is defined as “a personal injury resulting in death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement.” Needless to say, many injuries that you would consider painful and disruptive would not qualify as a “serious” injury under the law. With limited tort coverage, you would not be allowed to recover non-economic damages in these cases.

For more information on full tort coverage, please contact our West Chester office at 610-692-1371 or by email.