Look at the Declarations page of your insurance policy. This page shows your coverages, limits of coverage and the amount you pay for each coverage. If you cannot find this sheet, call your insurance agent.

DEFINITIONS
There are three important coverages in accidents involving injuries:

1. Bodily Injury Liability: Covers injury or death caused by you as a driver or anyone driving your car with your permission.

2. Underinsured and Uninsured Motorist: Protects you and others in your car if injured by a negligent driver who does not have bodily injury liability insurance or has too little insurance. Typically, underinsured and uninsured motorist claims involve lost wages, medical bills and compensation for injuries.

3. Medical Payment: Pays your medical bills and the medical bills of each injured person in your car, regardless of who is at fault in causing the accident.

RECOMMENDED COVERAGES AND LIMITS
To be adequately insured, I recommend two insurance policies. The first is your regular automobile insurance and the second insurance is an umbrella or excess policy.

Your regular automobile insurance should have bodily injury liability coverage, underinsured motorist coverage and uninsured motorist coverage. The limits should be at least $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence for each coverage. Medical payment coverage should be at least $10,000 for each injured person. Property damage insurance should be for $100,000.

The umbrella insurance policy should have limits of $1 million and include bodily injury liability coverage, underinsured motorist coverage, uninsured motorist coverage, and property damage coverage. Your umbrella insurance will pay losses which are over the limits of your automobile insurance, up to the coverage limit of $1 million.

The cost of a $1 million umbrella insurance policy is approximately $120 a year and up, depending on the number of drivers in your household, driving records and number of vehicles. This is an added cost, but suppose a negligent driver who had no insurance caused you and your family to suffer catastrophic injuries. You would at least have insurance coverage of $1 million.

You are underinsured if you only have one automobile insurance policy with coverage limits of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence. You are inadequately insured if you do not have underinsured and uninsured motorist coverages.

If you cannot afford an umbrella policy, attempt to increase your bodily injury liability limit, your underinsured motorist limit, and uninsured motorist limit to $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence. The cost of increasing your limits is surprisingly little. You still will be underinsured, but much better off with the higher limits.

Under no circumstances should your underinsured and uninsured motorist limits be less than your bodily injury liability limits. Do not insure one vehicle for less than the other, even if you only “occasionally” drive that vehicle.

CALL YOUR INSURANCE AGENT TODAY
Call today and tell your agent that you want a $1 million umbrella policy. If you absolutely cannot afford a $1 million umbrella policy, then increase your bodily injury liability limit, your underinsured motorist limit, and your uninsured motorist limit to $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence.

Remember, automobile accidents do not always happen to the other guy. The dollars invested in buying the proper coverages and limits may be the best investment you will ever make.

Every coverage has a set limit which the insurance company will pay up to, and nothing more. Many persons have $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence bodily injury, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage limits, $50,000 property damage limits, and $5,000 medical payment coverage limits. If you have coverage limits equal to or less than these, you are underinsured and are at risk for potential financial ruin. Consider the following.

EXAMPLE 1: Your are seriously injured in a car accident by a driver who has NO insurance. Because of your injuries your medical bills are $100,000 and you lose $25,000 of income from work. Do you have enough uninsured motorist coverage?

EXAMPLE 2: Same facts, but driver, instead of being without insurance has $100,000 per person bodily injury coverage. Do you have enough underinsured motorist coverage?

EXAMPLE 3 : You seriously injure a person in a car accident and you were at fault. The injured person has $50,000 in medical bills and will not be able to return to her $35,000 a year job. Do you have enough bodily injury coverage?

So what can you do to protect yourself? I suggest, at a minimum, you purchase in addition to your regular car insurance, an umbrella policy with $1,000,000 of bodily injury, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist, and property damage coverage limits. The cost of this insurance is approximately $120 a year and up, depending on the number of drivers in the household, driving records, and number of cars. You should also have a minimum $10,000 of medical payment coverage and, if your insurance company will sell you more, buy up to $25,000 of medical payment coverage. Your uninsured/underinsured motorist limits should always be equal to your bodily injury limits. DO NOT insure one car for less than the other.

An accident does not always happen to someone else. Buy enough insurance, buy the right coverages and don’t believe “full coverage” means enough insurance. If you have any questions about insurance or uninsured or underinsured motorist claims, feel free to call me.

Illinois law requires drivers involved in an injury or property damage accident to remain at the scene and exchange information. Be sure to get the other driver’s license number, plate number, insurance company and policy number. The best way to give and receive this information is through the police officer.

Call for an ambulance!

If someone has been injured, call or have someone call an ambulance.

Call the police!

Always call the police. Police officers are trained in investigating accidents. The police report will be very important in proving fault.

Report the accident to your insurance company!

As soon as possible call your insurance agent and report the accident.

Do not give a statement to the other driver’s insurance company!

The insurance company of the other driver and you have different economic interests. Your interest is to be fairly compensated and their interest is to pay you nothing or as little as possible for your medical bills, lost income and suffering.

The real purpose in taking a recorded statement from you by a trained and skilled adjuster is to defeat or harm your case. What you say in a recorded statement will be used against you and almost never will be used to help you. To protect your rights do not even talk to the insurance adjuster until you have sought legal advice.

Traffic tickets

Many people are under the mistaken impression that the issuance of a traffic ticket in an accident means that the ticketed driver is at fault and that a jury in a personal injury case will find out which driver received the ticket. Only when a person pleads guilty to a traffic ticket or makes some other admission of liability in traffic court will a jury in a personal injury case know who got the ticket. If the other driver or you receive a traffic ticket in an injury or property damage accident, protect your legal rights – seek legal advice.

Seek continued medical care if pain persists and tell your doctor where you hurt!
If your injuries and complaints of pain are not corroborated by the medical records, you stand to lose reimbursement for your medical bills, lost income, and compensation for injuries and suffering.

Many accident victims suffer injuries to more than one part of their body, for example, an arm and leg. If both your arm and leg hurt, tell your doctor of both conditions even if your arm hurts more than your leg. If the first entry in your doctor’s records of leg pain is not in close proximity to the accident or you do not tell the doctor about your leg pain at each appointment, the other driver’s insurance company may dispute your leg injury. In a lawsuit, the insurance company lawyer will seize upon your inadvertent omission and portray you to the jury as either faking or exaggerating. Do not put yourself in this position. Succinctly tell the doctor where you hurt.

Protect your rights!

It is up to you to protect your rights. If you are wrongfully injured you may be entitled to be reimbursed for medical bills and lost income from the at fault driver’s insurance company. You may also be entitled to compensation for your injuries, suffering and disability. If the at fault driver does not have insurance, you may be able to make an uninsured motorist claim against your insurance company.

This article is reprinted electronically with the express permission of Northern Illinois University Law Review. The article originally appeared in Volume 26, Summer 2006 at page 527 and can be retrieved and should be cited or quoted from the original published version found at 26 N. ILL. U. L. REV. 527.

The Supreme Court of Illinois has twice held that caps on damages are unconstitutional. In 1976, the Court decided Wright v. Central Du Page Hospital Association, holding that caps on damages in medical malpractice cases are unconstitutional. Twenty-one years later, the court in Best v. Taylor Machine Works held that caps on non-economic damages in bodily injury and death cases are unconstitutional. Nothing has changed since Wright and Best, except another lap around the insurance industry’s predictable economic cycle. Once again, medical malpractice insurance companies temporarily lost money on their investments, hiked up premiums, and then blamed it on the seriously injured medical malpractice victim. However, overwhelming evidence shows that the recent surge in malpractice premiums is not causally related to damage awards or indemnity payouts. Overwhelming evidence shows that caps on damages in medical malpractice cases do not reduce physicians’ premiums. So why were caps enacted yet again? Medical liability insurers cleverly manipulated their books to mislead physicians, lawmakers and the public into believing that Illinois is in the midst of another so-called “medical malpractice crisis” caused by non-economic damage awards. The deceived public is fearful of losing health care access, so lawmakers, wanting to be reelected, pass so-called “reforms”, while doctors’ premiums continue to skyrocket and medical malpractice insurers profit. This so called “reform” is ultimately to the harm of those not backed by powerful special interests and who are unaware that they will someday need the protection of the courts, the seriously injured medical malpractice victim.

As a result of their hard work and outstanding efforts, third-year students Kevin McHugh (center, left) and Gary Pinter advanced to the regional finals in the National Trial Team Competition held in February. They prevailed over University of Illinois and Loyola University in the preliminary rounds and over Northwestern University in the semi-finals. NIU Law Trial Advocacy Adjunct Professors Frank Perrecone (far left) and Hon. Fernando Engelsma (far right) served as the team’s primary coaches.

This article is reprinted electronically with the express permission of Northern Illinois University Law Review. The article originally appeared in Volume 28, Summer 2008 at page 537 and can be retrieved and should be cited or quoted from the original published version found at 28 N. ILL. U. L. REV. 537.

As Justice O‘Connor‘s comments in Browning-Ferris make clear, the federalization of punitive damages was driven by a concern for the interests of big business.182 But instead of permitting states to police their own dam-age awards, the Supreme Court crafted a questionable remedy out of the Fourteenth Amendment‘s Due Process Clause, limiting the exposure of intentional and reckless wrongdoers whose reprehensible conduct has caused physical, emotional or financial injury. The Court‘s punitive damage jurisprudence dispenses with the traditional deference afforded a jury‘s decision, essentially converting its award of punitive damages into an advi-sory opinion subject to a reviewing court‘s constitutional calculator. But punitive damages cannot be logically reduced to a mathematical formula. In applying the federal guideposts, courts must be cognizant that their role in reviewing the size of a punitive damage awards is to determine whether they fall within the broad parameters of a reasonable range, keeping in mind that the purpose of punitive damages is to punish and deter reprehensible conduct.