What is uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage on my auto insurance policy?
Driver Safety: Starts before you turn the ignition key The biggest road hazard you may face this and next year are uninsured motorists. If you didn’t have enough to worry about with double bottomed semi-truck trailers, pieces of retread tires and idiot drivers’ texting on their cell phones, now you have to worry about the uninsured adding more financial ruin to your already overtaxed financial planning. There is a direct correlation between the rate of unemployment and the rate of uninsured motorists. The IRC estimates that as the unemployment rate creeps up so does the uninsured drivers. In fact they say for every 1 percent increase in unemployment nationwide, the percentage of uninsured motorists’ increases three-quarters of a percentage point. So in 2007 the rate was 13.8 percent and it’s estimated that by next year the rate will be 16.1 percent. Uninsured motorist coverage is referred to as UIM coverage and underinsured motorist coverage as UDM. The two are quite different legally.
