If a driver with no insurance hit you in San Jose, the medical bills keep arriving while the person responsible disappears from the picture. Alexander Law Group, LLP’s uninsured motorist lawyer in San Jose can open a claim under your own auto policy and press it as far as the coverage and the evidence allow. We represent people with life-changing injuries and families who have lost someone throughout San Jose and Santa Clara County.
Most California drivers carry this protection without ever thinking about it. The difficulty begins when you try to use it, because the company reviewing your uninsured driver accident claim is the same one you have been paying premiums to for years.
Call Alexander Law Group at (408) 289-1776 for a free case evaluation. Our uninsured/underinsured motorist accident attorney in San Jose can meet by phone or by Zoom, and our intake is handled in-house, so you speak with our office rather than a call center.
Who Pays When the Driver Who Hit You Has No Insurance?
Your own auto policy pays through the uninsured motorist coverage built into it. California Insurance Code section 11580.2 requires every auto liability policy issued in this state to include uninsured motorist coverage unless the policyholder deletes it in writing. Because that waiver has to be signed and deliberate, a great many people who assume they have nothing are actually covered.
The coverage exists for a plain reason. California Vehicle Code section 16020 requires every driver to carry proof of financial responsibility, and the Legislature knew perfectly well that not every driver would.
The statute treats uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage as a single offering, usually shown on a declarations page as something like “UM/UIM 100/300.” That first number is the limit available to a single injured person, and the second is the total available for a single crash.
The first thing we ask for in a new uninsured motorist case is the declarations page, not the police report. It tells us what money actually exists before anyone argues about fault, and it occasionally reveals coverage the adjuster never mentioned on the phone.
Uninsured and Underinsured: Two Different Gaps in the Same Policy
These two terms describe different money problems that lead to the same place: your own policy. Understanding which one applies changes how the claim is built and when it can be filed.
- Uninsured. The at-fault driver had no bodily injury liability insurance at the time of the crash, the insurer denies coverage, or the driver cannot be identified at all.
- Underinsured. The at-fault driver did have insurance, but for an amount lower than the uninsured motorist limits you carry.
The underinsured side carries a detail that surprises almost everyone. Your underinsured coverage only helps if your own limits are higher than the at-fault driver’s limits, and what you recover is reduced by whatever that driver’s insurer already paid.
Someone carrying the same limits as the person who hit them may have no underinsured-party recovery available at all, which is a good reason to review your declarations page today rather than after a crash.
Does a Hit and Run Count as an Uninsured Motorist Claim?
Yes. California treats a vehicle whose driver or owner cannot be identified as an uninsured vehicle, so you can pursue a claim under your own policy even though the driver was never found. The statute attaches conditions to these claims, and they are strict.
- There generally must have been physical contact between the fleeing vehicle and you or your vehicle.
- The crash has to be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency within 24 hours.
- A sworn statement has to go to your insurer within 30 days.
Those deadlines run whether or not anyone tells you about them, which is why a call to the San Jose Police Department on the day of the crash matters so much. If you were struck and left on a San Jose street and are not sure what was reported, our hit-and-run practice covers how these claims are put together.
Why Your Own Insurer Starts Acting Like the Other Side
The moment you file an uninsured motorist claim, your insurer’s financial interest flips. Every dollar it pays you comes out of its own pocket rather than another carrier’s, and the file gets handled accordingly.
What follows tends to look familiar to anyone who has dealt with a third-party adjuster. There are requests for recorded statements taken before you know the full extent of your injuries, broad medical authorizations that reach back years into unrelated care, examinations by a physician the insurer selects and pays, and an early offer that arrives before your treatment has finished.
California law does not leave policyholders without recourse here. Your insurer owes you a duty of good faith and fair dealing, and California Insurance Code section 790.03 sets out the claim handling practices the state treats as unfair.
Under the California Supreme Court’s decision in Brandt v. Superior Court, an insured who proves that benefits were unreasonably withheld can recover the attorney fees spent forcing payment of those benefits. That remedy exists because the law recognizes what it costs to make a carrier honor its own policy.
What Happens in UM Arbitration?
Most California uninsured motorist disputes in Santa Clara County Superior Court are decided by a private arbitrator rather than a jury. California’s uninsured motorist law requires policies to provide for arbitration of disputes over liability and the amount of damages, so the forum is usually settled before the argument starts.
That changes the work considerably. Discovery in these proceedings is governed by the statute rather than by the ordinary civil rules; the arbitrator’s authority is limited to the questions the parties actually submitted, and a judge rather than the arbitrator handles discovery disputes and sanctions.
The practical point is simple. Your insurer will have a lawyer at that hearing who routinely handles these proceedings, and the case will be presented once.
Stacking UM and UIM Coverage in California
Coverage from more than one vehicle can sometimes be combined, and the answer lives in the policy language rather than in any general rule. Combining limits across vehicles or across separate policies is known as stacking, and California policies commonly contain anti-stacking and “other insurance” provisions written specifically to prevent it.
Whether those provisions hold up depends on how they are worded, how many policies are involved, and whether the injured person qualifies as an insured under each one. A household with two policies, or a passenger covered under a relative’s policy, can end up with more available coverage than the first adjuster describes.
This is worth having someone read the actual policy rather than relying on a summary over the phone. Our UM/UIM claim lawyer in California does that reading before we tell a client what a claim is worth.
What Compensation Can You Recover Through a UM Claim?
An uninsured or underinsured motorist claim covers the same categories of loss a claim against an at-fault driver would, up to the limits on your policy. The label on the claim changes; the harm does not.
- Emergency treatment, hospitalization, surgery, and rehabilitation
- Future medical care, assistive equipment, and attendant care for a permanent injury
- Lost income, and lost earning capacity when you cannot return to the work you did before
- Physical pain, emotional suffering, and the loss of things you used to be able to do
- Losses a family sustains when a crash is fatal, pursued through a wrongful death claim
Which of these apply, and what each is worth, depends on the medical proof and the policy limits available in your particular case.
Why San Jose Families Bring UM Claims to Alexander Law Group
We are a trial firm. Our work centers on catastrophic injury and wrongful death rather than high-volume claim processing, and that focus shapes how a file is prepared from the first week forward.
- Attorneys who try cases. Richard Alexander and Todd Falzone handle the serious injury and fatal crash work at our firm.
- Hard cases are the practice. We take toxic chemical exposure and birth defect claims that many general personal injury practices turn away, which means complicated proof and reluctant defendants are familiar ground.
- Local and reachable. Our office is at 99 Almaden Blvd in downtown San Jose, minutes from the Santa Clara County courthouse, and our intake is handled by our own staff.
- Results against large defendants. Our case results include a $550 million class action against General Motors over a fuel system defect.
Past results do not predict or assure a similar outcome in any other matter, and every case is decided on its own facts.
If your own insurance company has gone quiet, or the offer on the table does not come close to what you are facing, call us at (408) 289-1776, and we will look at the policy with you.
How Long Do You Have to Act on an Uninsured Motorist Claim?
Two years is the outside limit for most uninsured motorist claims, and your policy may require you to speak up much sooner than that. Under section 11580.2, an insured generally has two years from the date of the crash to file suit against the uninsured motorist, reach a written agreement with the insurer on the amount owed, or formally demand arbitration.
Underinsured claims run on a different clock, because the deadline depends partly on what happens with the at-fault driver’s own insurer. Separately, California Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 sets a two-year limit on personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits.
Layered on top of all of that are the notice provisions inside your own policy, which are often measured in days. Missing one of them can end a valid claim before anyone looks at your injuries.
FAQs Answered by Our San Jose Uninsured Motorist Lawyer
These are the questions we hear most often from people whose crash involved a driver with no coverage or not enough of it.
Do I have uninsured motorist coverage if I never asked for it?
Probably. California requires insurers to include it in every auto liability policy unless you signed a written waiver removing it. Pull out your declarations page and look for a line labeled UM or UM/UIM, and if you cannot find the page, your insurer has to provide a copy on request.
Will my premium go up if I use my own uninsured motorist coverage?
California regulations restrict an insurer’s ability to surcharge a driver who was not principally at fault in a crash. Because the rules turn on fault and on your specific policy, the California Department of Insurance is the right place to take questions about your rating, and we can tell you how the fault question is likely to be resolved in your case.
Can I file a claim if I was a passenger?
Often, yes. Passengers may be covered under the driver’s policy, under their own policy, or under a resident relative’s policy, and more than one may apply. This is one of the situations where reading every available policy matters, because the coverage is not always where people expect it to be.
What if the driver who hit me had insurance, just not enough?
That is an underinsured motorist claim, and it becomes available when your own uninsured motorist limits exceed the at-fault driver’s liability limits. What you recover is reduced by the amount that the driver’s insurer pays. Handling the order of those steps correctly matters because settling with the at-fault carrier without following the right process can affect the underinsured claim.
Does uninsured motorist coverage pay to repair my car?
Not usually. Bodily injury coverage and property damage coverage are separate, and repairs are typically handled through uninsured motorist property damage coverage or through collision coverage if you carry it. Your insurance claim options after a crash often involve several coverages at once.
I missed the 24-hour report after a hit-and-run. Is my claim over?
Not necessarily, but it is a serious problem worth addressing immediately rather than hoping it goes unnoticed. Courts have allowed insurers to deny coverage over late reporting in hit-and-run cases, and the outcome can turn on what the delay costs the investigation. Bring the facts to a lawyer before you give a statement to your carrier.
How much does it cost to have you review my claim?
The case evaluation is free and can be done by phone or over Zoom if getting to our office is difficult right now. We will tell you plainly whether we think a claim is worth pursuing.
Talk With a San Jose Uninsured Motorist Lawyer Today
Being hurt by someone who carried no insurance is a particular kind of unfairness, and being stonewalled afterward by the company you pay to protect you makes it worse. You do not have to work out the policy language, the deadlines, or the arbitration process by yourself.
Call Alexander Law Group at (408) 289-1776, or reach us through our contact page, and we will review your coverage and tell you where you stand. If you are still gathering information about the crash itself, our San Jose car accident practice covers the wider claim.
