Injured by an Uninsured Motorist? Laws in Chicago

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Injured by an Uninsured Motorist? Laws in Chicago

Written by Malman Law, reviewed by Steve J. Malman.

Car accidents can be costly, painful and stressful in any scenario, but the situation is exacerbated when the person who hit you doesn’t have any insurance or doesn’t have enough insurance. If this is the case, you may wonder if you can hope to obtain any compensation at all. It can be easy to imagine that you may end up burdened with the additional indignity of paying out of pocket for your own care and time off from work.

Indeed, chances are that if you are involved in a car accident, the other driver may not have insurance. According to the Insurance Research Council, roughly one in seven Americans does not have motor vehicle insurance coverage. However, if you’ve been hurt recently or even several weeks or months ago by an uninsured driver, chances are good that you still have legal options.

A few basic laws in Chicago regarding vehicle insurance:

• Illinois mandates insurance coverage for all drivers.
  Many states have pricey fines and corresponding penalties for those who do not have insurance coverage, as does Illinois.
• Under Illinois Safety and Family Financial Responsibility Law, motorists are required to hold insurance with minimum limits for bodily injury, death and property damage. However, these limits may not cover the extent of damage sustained in a car accident.
• Pursuing other avenues than the at-fault driver’s insurance, to recover full costs, is a critical strategy for those injured by such an under insured driver.
• All insurance policies sold must come with Uninsured Motorist Coverage, which means that your insurance company must pay some or all of the costs for any damages and injuries suffered.
• Under insured and uninsured motorist coverage provides the insurance holder with coverage for damage caused by these drivers, up to a certain amount of damages.

The technicalities involved in making a claim for uninsured motorist benefits in Illinois can be quite perplexing to anyone not schooled in the finer aspects of laws in Chicago. Therefore, it is often a smart idea to retain an experienced Illinois uninsured motorist lawyer to assist you in making a claim for compensation resulting from injuries caused by uninsured motorists.

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