A wreck on the 405 or on San Vicente is hard enough when the other driver has a usable policy. It is a different problem when that driver has no insurance, carries only a thin policy, or is already gone when the dust settles. California has a required uninsured-motorist structure, and it also has a 1996 initiative that can take pain-and-suffering damages off the table in some uninsured or DUI-conviction cases.
Uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy
INS 11580.2 requires a bodily-injury auto policy issued or delivered in California, with the exceptions the statute names, to include uninsured-motorist coverage. The coverage has to be at least as high as the financial-responsibility floor in VEH 16056, and it has to be offered with limits matching the bodily-injury limits on the same policy, though an insurer is not required to offer it above the thirty-thousand and sixty-thousand figures in subdivision (m). A named insured can turn the coverage down in writing, or agree in writing to carry it at a lower amount that is still at least the 16056 floor.
The point of the coverage is to pay bodily-injury or wrongful-death damages that you would be legally able to collect from the owner or the driver of an uninsured vehicle, up to the UM limits on your policy. Underinsured coverage travels with uninsured coverage on policies first written or renewed from July 1, 1985 onward, and the two are offered as a single coverage. When another driver’s limits are too small for the harm, underinsured coverage can fill part of the gap, after credit for amounts already paid by or for anyone legally responsible, as subdivision (p) describes.
INS 11580.2 also says those uninsured and underinsured limits are not stacked across vehicles or policies. Two cars on one household policy do not give you two pots to add together.
Unknown drivers and hit-and-run
For an uninsured vehicle whose owner or operator is unknown, the statute adds two hooks. The bodily injury must have arisen out of physical contact of that automobile with you or with an automobile you were occupying. A near miss that forced you into a tree, with no scrape, may not fit. Transfer of paint, a cracked mirror or a crease in the body panel might. Photograph the contact before a shop paints over it.
The insured, or someone on the insured’s behalf, must also have reported the wreck within 24 hours to the police department of the city where it happened, or, if it happened in unincorporated territory, to the sheriff or to the local California Highway Patrol. A Westside surface-street wreck is usually a city police report. A 405 wreck is often a CHP report. The crash-report guide covers how to obtain the document later. The 24-hour report is the statutory hook. Asking for a copy a week later does not replace a report that was never made.
The two-year uninsured-motorist hook
A claim under this coverage generally requires, within two years from the date of the wreck, one of the steps the statute names. Those steps include filing a bodily-injury lawsuit against the uninsured motorist, reaching an agreement on the amount due under the policy, or formally starting arbitration by written notice to the insurer sent by certified mail, return receipt requested. Read the current text of INS 11580.2 for the exact conditions. The insurer, if a claim is pending, is supposed to remind the insured in writing at least 30 days before the applicable limitation expires. A failure to give that reminder tolls the limitation for 30 days from the date the written notice is actually given.
That first-party clock is not a substitute for the two-year lawsuit date in CCP 335.1 against a known driver who simply has a small policy or a coverage fight.
Proposition 213 and non-economic losses
CIV 3333.4 was added by Proposition 213 in 1996. In a motor-vehicle case, a person generally cannot recover non-economic losses, the statute’s phrase for pain, suffering, inconvenience, impaired body function, disfigurement and similar non-money harm, if any of three facts is true. The injured person was behind the wheel in violation of Vehicle Code 23152 or 23153 and received a conviction for that offense. After that conviction, the injured person owned a vehicle that was part of the wreck and that vehicle was not insured as the financial-responsibility laws require. Or the injured person was operating a vehicle involved in the wreck and cannot establish financial responsibility as those laws require.
There is a narrow exception in subdivision (c). An uninsured owner described in the second category, who was injured by a motorist convicted of a 23152 or 23153 offense, is not blocked from those non-economic losses. Subdivision (b) also says an insurer is not liable, under a liability policy or a UM policy, to pay for the non-economic losses of a person described in subdivision (a).
This is one of the rules that surprises people after a Westside wreck. Medical bills and lost wages can still be in play. Pain-and-suffering damages may not be, if one of those three facts applies and the exception does not. An attorney who handles these claims will want the declarations page and any conviction paperwork early, because the answer changes the value of the file in a basic way.
Fault still matters
Uninsured and underinsured claims still rest on negligence. You still have to prove that the other driver would owe you a legal duty and would be responsible for the harm. Official instruction CACI 405 reduces a recovery by the injured person’s own percentage of responsibility. There is no half-fault cutoff in that instruction, but a large share on your side shrinks the number that UM coverage might pay. The fault and deadline guide explains the comparison.
Notify your own insurer, and notify the police, if those reports still have not been made. Do not give an audio statement to a stranger who says they are “calling for the other driver.” If a lawyer becomes part of the file, bring the report number, the declarations page and the photographs of any contact damage.
- Uninsured motorist coverage
- First-party coverage that pays, up to its limits, bodily-injury or wrongful-death damages you would be legally able to collect from an uninsured owner or operator.
- Physical contact
- The statutory hook in INS 11580.2 for an unknown owner or operator, requiring contact between that automobile and you or the automobile you occupied.
- Non-economic losses
- The category CIV 3333.4 uses for pain, suffering and similar nonpecuniary harm, which the statute can take off the table in the situations it names.