We ended part one of this series by impressing upon you the importance of talking to a New York personal injury lawyer before you speak to the other driver’s insurance company. In part two, we will review the car insurance coverages that protect you if you suffer injuries in a car crash because of another driver’s negligence. If you have sustained a severe injury, don’t think the other guy’s liability insurance coverage will protect you even if the accident is his fault. If the accident is his fault, why won’t his coverage protect you or your family? Because sadly, the required insurance limits are low. Why is that sad? If the car or truck that crashes into you has minimum liability coverage required by New York, you may suffer lifelong injuries, but you end up with nothing! That’s why it is essential that you learn the secrets of protecting yourself! But before discussing the coverages to protect you, let’s discuss the liability coverage that protects the other guy. New York law requires every vehicle to have minimum liability policy limits of $25,000/$50,000. What does this mean? It means that if another driver crashes into you, the most his insurance company will be required to pay any person injured in the crash is $25,000. And the most they would be required to pay for all persons injured in the collision is $50,000. Of course, people can purchase more than the minimum liability limit of $25,000 (and I strongly recommend that my clients do so for the reasons discussed below). My twenty years representing folks hurt in car crashes have taught me one harsh but critical lesson: the worst drivers carry the least insurance! That’s right, the people who have had several bad accidents because they drive too fast all the time, the person who has two previous DWI’s, the nineteen year old driving his souped-up car. Those are the folks who cause most accidents. And those are the folks who invariably carry the minimum limits. And sadly, no law says the worst drivers should have to purchase more insurance to protect the rest of us. So, if a drunk driver with minimum liability insurance smashes into your car while driving with your spouse and two kids, and all four of you receive horrible injuries, the absolute maximum the drunk’s insurance company would have to pay your entire family is $50,000. So you can’t go back to work, you have monstrous medical expenses for your whole family, and all they have to pay is $50,000. And for those who think $50,000 sounds like a lot of money, trust me; $50,000 is nothing when you are not working. $50,000 is nothing when one day in the ICU can cost $18,000 (not an exaggeration – one of my clients recently received an $18,000 bill for one day!). $50,000 is nothing when you must split it among many injured persons. So if the other driver’s liability insurance isn’t going to protect you, you better make sure your insurance will cover you! Protecting Your Family – The Coverages That Protect You Thankfully, there are insurance coverages that do protect you and your family. As I mentioned earlier, this auto insurance stuff is complicated. Still, please keep reading because now we are talking about the most important coverages. There are two main types of coverages that protect you: First, no-fault coverage – all New York vehicles must have this coverage. The big secret is that you can significantly increase the amount of your no-fault coverage for a low additional premium. Supplementary Underinsured Motorist’s coverage is the biggie that no one knows about! But this is the coverage everyone should have! No-Fault Insurance in New York New York is a no-fault law state, and no-fault insurance coverage does help to protect you and your passengers. What is “no fault” insurance? No-fault (NF) insurance in New York means that the insurance carrier for your vehicle, rather than the insurance carrier for the other vehicle, pays your medical bills or lost wages. This is true regardless of who was at fault in causing the accident – that’s why it’s called no-fault. However, no-fault does not apply to property damage claims (that’s the damage to your vehicle) which are usually paid for by the insurance carrier for the vehicle that caused the collision (the at-fault vehicle), or, by your carrier if you carried collision coverage. No-fault benefits include: Your hospital and medical expenses. Your lost wages equaling 80% up to $1000 per month for a period not exceeding three years (Note: some policies provide more than the $1,000 per month minimum required by New York law). All New York NF policies are required to provide total coverage of a minimum of $50,000 for medical costs and lost wages. However, you can (and should!) purchase additional NF coverage (APIP—Additional Personal Injury Protection) to provide limits higher than $50,000. As I said before, this additional coverage is inexpensive, considering the considerable extra protection you purchase for your family. Why You Should Consider Buying No-Fault Coverage Limits Higher Than $50,000 Like I said before, $50,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it goes fast if you are not working or receiving expensive medical treatment. We all know how outrageous medical expenses are and how quickly our regular bills add up when we cannot work. I strongly urge my clients to consult with their insurance agent to see how much more it would cost to purchase at least $100,000 of NF coverage rather than the minimum of $50,000. Even more than $100,000 is beneficial, and the cost for the additional coverage is low. A good insurance agent can explain that the introductory amount of coverage is expensive to purchase. But increasing the basic coverage to add additional coverage does not cost much more. Plus, it provides LOTS more protection to you. Contact the Ziff Law Firm today to schedule a free, no obligation consultation with an experienced, New York personal injury lawyer.to discuss your injury case today. Call (800) 943-3529 or email us at info@zifflaw.com. There is no cost for an initial consultation and case evaluation with a member of our experienced legal team, so call us today to get started.
Best Lawyers in America, renowned as the oldest peer-review publication within the legal profession, has honored James Reed and Christina Sonsire as Best Lawyers in America for 2023. Christina Sonsire and Jim Reed have been recognized in the 29th edition of The Best Lawyers in America®️ for their high-caliber work in Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs. While Mr. Reed has been named a Best Lawyer every year since 2012 and Ms. Sonsire since 2015, it remains a distinct honor to be recognized by one’s peers with an award that symbolizes excellence in legal practice. For an attorney to be included in Best Lawyers results from a rigorous, peer-review survey that more than 12.2 million of the top attorneys in the U.S. complete. Since its inception in 1981, the founding principles of the review process remain unchanged, forming the basis of its transparent methodology. More than 108,000 lawyers worldwide are eligible to vote on the more than thirteen million evaluations of attorneys within specific practice areas. Best Lawyers bases its peer-review process on the idea that “the best lawyers know who the best lawyers are.” Therefore, one of the privileges of being a Best Lawyer nominee is the ability to participate in the voting and review process for next year’s edition. Since lawyers cannot pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in the Best Lawyers class of 2023 is an honor. Ziff Law Firm, LLP proudly congratulates Jim Reed and Christina Sonsire for being named Best Lawyers in America for 2023. We are proud of their work to protect the rights of people who have sustained injuries because of the negligence of others in New York and Pennsylvania.
Supplementary Underinsured Motorists Coverage The Most Important Car Insurance Coverage You Can Buy! We have now come to the car insurance coverage that almost no one knows about but could be the most important coverage you can have if you are involved in a car crash with severe injuries. Earlier, I discussed New York insurance law’s low mandatory liability limits. New York law requires just $25,000 per person or $50,000 total per accident, no matter how many people were hurt. So if you sustain an injury in a car crash, those amounts could be exhausted in a heartbeat. The good news is that New York requires your insurance company to offer you another type of coverage called Supplementary Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists coverage, or SUM. Your company is required to offer you SUM coverage up to the liability coverage you carry on your vehicle. SUM provides coverage from your insurance company to protect you (and your passengers) if the other driver is driving without any insurance (uninsured) or driving with policy limits that are not high enough to cover your damages (underinsured). While liability coverage protects the other guy, SUM coverage protects you! You would think everyone would know about and have SUM coverage, but I can tell you from cruel, harrowing experiences representing the victims of bad accidents that very few people know about or have SUM coverage. Why don’t people know about SUM coverage? Because most carriers hate writing SUM coverage because the premiums they charge for SUM are low, while the potential payouts are high. Remember that word “profit”? SUM isn’t great for profits; consequently, insurance carriers do not encourage their agents to push SUM coverage. If you learn nothing else from this article, please know that you should ask your insurance agent about SUM coverage! I am encouraging you to insist on SUM limits equal to the amount of your liability limits. It won’t cost you much extra, but it will provide you with much more protection. A Real-World Example Of How Your Auto Insurance Works Let me give you an example of how SUM coverage works in combination with your No-Fault coverage and the other driver’s liability coverage. Assume you are well-informed from having read this book, and you tell your insurance agent that since you are carrying $250,000/$500,000 of liability coverage to protect the other guy, you also want $250,000/$500,000 of SUM coverage to protect you and your passengers. You also asked your agent for additional coverage (APIP) that boosts the minimum no-fault coverage from the required minimum of $50,000 up to $100,000. Let’s assume you, your spouse, and your two kids are on the way home from dinner one night. Tragically, a drunk driver with a long history of drunken driving accidents runs a red light at high speed and smashes into your car. Your entire family has suffered injuries in the crash. You have sustained a broken leg and ribs and now have horrible back pain. Your spouse is in the ICU with a fractured neck and wrist. Your kids each suffer broken bones and facial lacerations. Both you and your spouse end up needing surgery. Medical expenses for the four of you are more than $350,000. Both you and your wife have been out of work for months. Your lost wages are more than $50,000. Your mortgage goes unpaid; your car loans go unpaid. The good news is that your basic No-Fault coverage will pay the first $50,000 of medical expenses and lost wages. Even better, since you were smart enough to buy additional NF coverage (APIP), boosting your limits to $100,000, you have a total of $100,000 for your medical expenses and lost wages. The bad news is that even $100,000 doesn’t begin to cover all your bills. You are still $300,000 short. So you think, “No problem, it’s the drunk driver’s fault, so of course, he will be liable for my expenses.” That’s an excellent thought. Guess what? The drunk only has a minimum liability policy of $25,000/$50,000. So even though he has a horrible driving record, he only has $25/50,000 in coverage, and accordingly, all his insurance company is required to pay is $25/50,000. So you think, “$25/50,000. That’s just his insurance company, surely I can sue him personally and collect from him for all my injuries and damages.” Better think again. Twenty years of handling accident cases have made one thing clear to me. The folks causing the worst accidents and driving around with minimum policy limits are those who don’t have a penny in the bank, their house is mortgaged to the hilt, and there is a significant loan on their car. Have you ever heard the phrase “the judgment isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”? Or “you can’t get blood from a stone”? You guessed it, suing the drunk person personally is a waste of time and money. You are up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Or are you? Remember, you were smart enough to pay for that extra $250,000/$500,000 SUM coverage. Remember, the annual premium for that coverage costs you just a tiny amount more money per month. Well, that was the best money you ever spent. Why? SUM pays you the difference between the amount of your coverage and the amount of the coverage for the other driver who is “underinsured.” In our example, you have total SUM coverage of $500,000, and the drunk driver has $50,000 of coverage, so your insurance company must pay you for the full extent of your damages up to $450,000! SUM coverage saves the day for you and your family! Contact the Ziff Law Firm today to schedule a free, no obligation consultation with an experienced, New York personal injury lawyer.to discuss your injury case today. Call (800) 943-3529 or email us at info@zifflaw.com. There is no cost for an initial consultation and case evaluation with a member of our experienced legal team, so call us today to get started.