Hit and Run Accidents: Navigating Your Rights and Recovery

Hey, it's Loyd Bourgeois here to talk to you today about a post I read in a local group on Facebook recently.

It was talking about a hit and run, the DWI driver and they were just kind of asking like what they should do, did their insurance cover it?

And I thought it was a great question, gives us an opportunity to kind of talk through some of the issues that come up in these situations.

And so from what I read, thankfully the family was not very injured. The husband who was driving the car was able to kind of recognize what was happening and get out of the way of the impaired driver before significant damage maybe came to them.

But luckily that family had UM coverage or underinsured motorist or uninsured motorist coverage.

UM coverage in a situation where there is a hit and run will provide you coverage provided that you, most of the time, file the police report and have some other evidence or witnesses about what happened. So the insurance company will not just take your word that there was a hit and run, you have to have some evidence that another vehicle impacted you. It could be a witness outside your vehicle, or a witness from inside your vehicle, could be a police officer who investigated and then can affirm that, yes, you were impacted by another vehicle and that you didn't just, you know, hit a tree, crash into a parked car and are trying to utilize your UM coverage in that way.

The other big question that this family had was whether or not their UM coverage would pay for their property damage.

And that's really going to depend on the specifics of your policy and so you want to take a look at your policy specifically to see if your UM policy covers property damage. Most don't, typically here in Louisiana, you would have to get comprehensive collision insurance to cover any property damage that was caused either by you or another party, whether they were insured or not, and use that.

But there are some agencies, some insurers who do write uninsured property damage coverage. And that can be very important to have in those cases where you're not really injured but your vehicle is super damaged and so you'd want to, you know, check your coverages to make sure you have the right coverage there.

Hope this helps, and I hope you found this information useful. My name's Loyd Bourgeois, you can reach us at 985-240-9773. We look forward to hearing from you soon.