If you are a New Yorker and do not know what uninsurance or underinsurance motorist coverage is, you will still be grateful for a new law that goes into effect on June 18, 2018. This is long overdue. There are many stories of people catastrophically injured by others who carry the bare minimum liability insurance coverage (only $25,000 per person in NYS) or no insurance at all.
So what happens then you may ask?
There has always been a way to protect yourself and loved ones you drive in such a situation but it has never been brought to the public forefront. This new law changes that in a big way. It is named the Driver Protection Act for anyone interested in looking it up.
A description quoted from an article by one of the state’s preeminent authors on the subject follows:
Supplementary insurance, also known as uninsured or underinsured motorist insurance (or SUM), protects motorists who suffer severe and devastating injuries in accidents with drivers who carry inadequate or no insurance. Few drivers are aware of the value of supplementary insurance and insurance companies rarely offer supplementary insurance coverage above the statutory minimum. This bill will ensure that drivers are fully protected themselves by supplementary insurance equal to the bodily injury liability insurance coverage they select to protect others, unless they affirmatively elect lower coverage for themselves.
The amended statute maintains the optional nature of SUM coverage, as well as the ability of the policyholder to reject it entirely or purchase amounts of SUM coverage less than the bodily injury liability coverage under the policy. However, it provides that for new policies covered by the new law, if the policyholder does elect to reject the SUM coverage, or to purchase it in limits lower than the bodily injury liability limits, that decision and request must be made on a written or electronic waiver form provided by the insurer to the named insured.
This is a legal triumph for anyone who gets in a car in New York State.
