A graduate of McGeorge School of Law, John N. Demas is a personal injury lawyer in Sacramento, California. Since founding Demas & Rosenthal, LLP, he has become an expert in the field of personal injury law, successfully representing hundreds of clients during his nearly 20 years in business. Here, he gives a rundown of the basic steps a victim should take in a hit and run case.
A hit and run case can be a particularly troublesome type of accident case for individuals to become involved in. Fortunately, hit and runs don’t happen nearly as frequently as people think.
If you do happen to be the victim of one of these types of cases, though, one of the main things you can do is to try to get any information that you can about the vehicle and person who caused your accident—anything from a description of the other car to a partial license plate. Any information that you are able to get at all could be helpful in your case.
Even though hit and runs are not extremely common anymore, it is still important that anyone who is involved in one has uninsured motorist coverage. This can be such a benefit in these types of situations.
A true hit and run case is what happens when someone hits you or your vehicle but is never identified. If you are involved in a case like this, you will not be financially responsible as long as you have uninsured motorist coverage. In those situations, you can make a claim on that hit and run case against your own insurance policy, but only if you have the right coverage for that already in place at the time of the accident.
Most people, unfortunately, are woefully underinsured when it comes to uninsured motorist coverage. They do not understand that that this type of coverage gives you the opportunity to make a claim against your own insurance company when you are in that situation until it is too late.
A Case With an Underinsured Motorist
Although traditional hit and run cases are rare these days, it is far more common for someone to be involved in a case with an underinsured motorist. This is someone who does stop and is identified but unfortunately either does not have auto insurance or does not have enough coverage on his policy. These days, it is more likely that you are going to get hit by someone who doesn’t have enough auto insurance than it is that you are going to get hit in a vehicle by someone who flees the scene of the accident.
In situations where you are dealing with an underinsured motorist, your uninsured motorist coverage also provides additional financial protection. People need to read their policies carefully to determine whether they have what is called uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, as opposed to just uninsured motorist coverage.
As an example, if you are involved in a collision with someone who does not have any insurance coverage, then you can make a claim for coverage under your own policy. But, if you get hit by someone who has low limits on his auto coverage—and the minimum in California is just $15,000—then your underinsured motorist coverage should kick in and provide the additional funding.
You would be surprised how many people do not have enough motorist coverage. About three or four out of every 10 people who are insured in California have only the minimum liability coverage on their vehicles, which is why underinsured coverage is something the rest of us should really be looking at closely.
So the bottom line is this: If you get hit by someone who doesn’t have insurance or by someone who has a low limit in the coverage of their insurance, and you get seriously injured, the only potential claim you have is against your own uninsured/underinsured motorist policy.
That is a critical consumer issue. We stress it to all our clients here at Demas & Rosenthal. The most important thing you can do to help yourself is to get a lot of uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. It is so cheap, and it provides a great amount of protection for you if you are hurt or injured in an auto accident in the future.
