Why Am I Making a Claim Against My Own Insurance When the Other Driver Caused the Accident?
Understanding Why Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage Can Be So Valuable in California
After a serious automobile accident, most people understandably expect the driver who caused the collision—and that driver’s insurance company—to be responsible for paying their damages.
So clients are sometimes surprised when we explain that, after collecting the available insurance from the at-fault driver, the next step may be to pursue an Underinsured Motorist claim through their own automobile insurance policy.
A common reaction is:
“Why should I have to go after my own insurance company? I didn’t cause the accident.”
That is a perfectly understandable question.
The answer is that making an Uninsured (“UM”) or Underinsured (“UIM”) Motorist claim does not change who caused the accident. It simply recognizes an unfortunate reality: the person who caused the accident may not have enough insurance—or enough collectible assets—to make the injured person whole.
That is exactly the problem UM/UIM coverage was designed to solve.
Fault and the Source of Recovery Are Two Different Questions
Suppose another driver runs a red light, crashes into your vehicle, and causes significant injuries.
The other driver may be 100% at fault.
Nothing about making a claim against your own UM/UIM policy changes that.
But once fault is established, there is a second and equally important question:
Where is the money actually going to come from to fairly compensate the injured person?
In most automobile accident cases, the primary source of recovery is insurance—not the personal checking account, wages, home, or other property of the individual driver.
That distinction becomes especially important when the at-fault driver carries only minimum or relatively low liability limits.
California’s Minimum Liability Coverage Can Be Exhausted Very Quickly
California’s current minimum bodily injury liability limits are $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident.
While those limits are better than California’s previous $15,000/$30,000 minimums, $30,000 may still be woefully inadequate after a serious collision.
An injured person may have:
- Emergency room and ambulance expenses
- Diagnostic testing and imaging
- Physical therapy or chiropractic treatment
- Specialist consultations
- Injections or surgery
- Lost wages or reduced earning capacity
- Future medical care
- Permanent pain or limitations
- Significant pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life
A serious personal injury claim can therefore be worth many times the amount of the responsible driver’s liability insurance.
When that happens, payment of the defendant’s policy limits may still leave the injured person far from being made whole.
🛡️ This Is Why UM/UIM Coverage Is Such an Important Purchase
California insurers are required to offer Uninsured Motorist coverage, although consumers can reject or reduce it as permitted by law.
In our view, UM/UIM coverage is one of the most valuable optional protections a California driver can purchase.
Why?
Because you can control the insurance coverage you buy.
You cannot control the insurance coverage purchased by the stranger who may someday run a red light, rear-end your vehicle, cross the center divider, or otherwise seriously injure you or your family.
Many drivers carry only the minimum required insurance. Some drive without insurance at all.
UM/UIM coverage allows you to protect yourself against their failure to adequately insure themselves.
🛡️ It is essentially insurance against the possibility that the person who hurts you cannot financially make you whole.
Uninsured Motorist Coverage: When the Other Driver Has No Insurance
Uninsured Motorist—or UM—coverage generally applies when the responsible driver has no applicable bodily injury liability insurance.
If that driver causes your injuries, your own UM coverage may become the principal source of compensation available to you.
You are not seeking payment from your insurer because your insurance company caused the accident.
You are seeking the protection that you purchased specifically for the possibility that someone else would cause an accident without carrying insurance.
That is not a misuse of your policy.
It is precisely what the coverage is there for.
💡 Underinsured Motorist Coverage: When the Other Driver Has Insurance, But Not Enough
The more confusing situation for many people involves Underinsured Motorist—or UIM—coverage.
An underinsured driver has liability insurance, but the limits are lower than the injured person’s applicable UM/UIM limits.
💡 SIMPLE EXAMPLE:
For example, assume:
- The person who caused the accident has $30,000 in bodily injury liability insurance.
- You wisely purchased $100,000 in UM/UIM coverage.
- Your injuries and damages substantially exceed $100,000.
The responsible driver’s insurance company may pay its entire $30,000 policy limit.
But that $30,000 may come nowhere close to making you whole.
California law permits your UIM coverage to potentially provide additional compensation. However, UIM coverage is not stacked on top of the other driver’s coverage.
Your UIM carrier receives credit for the amount paid by or on behalf of the responsible party.
In this example, after receiving the defendant’s $30,000 policy limit, there could be up to $70,000 of additional UIM benefits available, assuming the evidence establishes damages sufficient to support the recovery.
The total potential insurance recovery would therefore generally be $100,000—not $130,000.
California also generally requires the applicable liability limits of the responsible vehicle or vehicles to be exhausted by payment of settlements or judgments before UIM benefits become available.
📋 Having UIM Coverage Does Not Mean the Insurance Company Simply Writes a Check
This is an extremely important point.
📋 Coverage does not eliminate the need to prove your claim.
UM/UIM coverage provides another potential source of recovery.
It does not eliminate the requirement that the claim be proven.
The injured person must still establish:
- That another person was legally responsible for the accident; and
- The nature, extent and reasonable value of the damages caused by that accident.
Medical records, medical bills, diagnostic studies, photographs, lost-income evidence, treating physicians, experts, witnesses and other evidence may all become important.
The insurance carrier is entitled to investigate and evaluate the claim. If the insured and insurer cannot agree about whether compensation is owed or the amount of the damages, California law provides for the dispute to be decided through arbitration.
This is one reason having an experienced California personal injury attorney can be particularly important.
Simply having a $100,000, $300,000 or larger UM/UIM policy does not establish that the claim is worth that amount.
The damages still have to be proven, and that can become very complicated.
A competent personal injury attorney should know how to develop the medical and damages evidence, evaluate the available insurance, determine whether additional responsible parties or assets exist, negotiate the claim, and what strategies to pursue if the insurance company is not negotiating in good faith.
💰 Why Not Simply Sue the Driver Personally for Everything Else?
This is another natural question.
If the other driver caused the accident, why not sue that person for every dollar of damages?
Sometimes that is appropriate.
But before spending substantial time and money pursuing an individual defendant personally, a competent attorney should consider a very practical question:
Is there anything realistically available to collect?
💰 Obtaining a judgment and collecting a judgment are two completely different things.
A defendant may have little money in the bank, modest wages, no meaningful nonexempt assets, limited home equity, significant debt, or other financial circumstances that make an excess judgment extremely difficult—or practically impossible—to collect.
California law also provides numerous exemptions and protections that can place certain property beyond the reach of ordinary judgment creditors.
A large judgment may look impressive on paper.
That does not mean it can actually be turned into money for the injured client.
⚖️ Litigation is Risky and Can Be Expensive—Even When You “Win”
There is another important consideration.
Most people have heard some version of the expression, “Sometimes, even when you win, you still lose.” In litigation, that can be especially true.
A lawsuit does not simply involve filing a case and eventually receiving a judgment. Litigation carries inherent uncertainty, and even a claim that appears strong on paper is never guaranteed to produce the result an injured person expects. Judges and juries can be unpredictable, and reasonable people can view the same evidence very differently. Litigation is also adversarial by design. The other side will not simply accept your version of the evidence. They may retain their own physicians, experts, accident reconstructionists, economists, or other professionals to challenge causation, the extent of the injuries, future damages, or the value of the claim. That does not mean the injured person’s case is weak or untrue. It means that even a strong case must be carefully developed, supported, and proven against organized opposition. Ultimately, the judge or jury decides which evidence is persuasive and what the case is worth.
Serious personal injury litigation can involve:
- Court filing and service fees
- Attorney time and increased contingency fees when litigation or trial becomes necessary
- Deposition costs and court reporter fees
- Medical-record and exhibit expenses
- Treating physician deposition or testimony fees
- Expert witness fees
- Accident reconstruction or other specialized experts
- Subpoenas and witness expenses
- Trial preparation and trial costs
- Substantial Delay-Months or sometimes years of litigation
Those expenses can accumulate remarkably quickly. Beyond any increased attorney’s fee associated with litigation or trial, the out-of-pocket costs of seriously litigating a personal injury case can readily reach into the tens of thousands of dollars, particularly when multiple depositions, physicians, expert witnesses, trial exhibits and other professional services become necessary.
And those costs are incurred without any guarantee of what a judge or jury will ultimately do.
A plaintiff can prevail on liability and still receive a damages award substantially below what was expected. A jury can reject portions of the claimed damages, discount testimony, disagree about causation, or simply value a case very differently than either side anticipated.
⚖️ In other words, it is possible to “win” a lawsuit and still lose economically.
A judgment may be reduced substantially by attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. And if the defendant has few or no collectible assets, the injured person can then face the additional problem of trying to collect whatever judgment remains.
Those expenses may be entirely justified when there is a meaningful source from which a judgment can ultimately be collected.
But spending substantial money litigating against someone who has no realistic ability to satisfy the judgment can be an entirely different proposition.
Imagine spending years and tens of thousands of dollars in litigation costs obtaining a $300,000 judgment against someone who has virtually nothing available to pay it.
You may have won the lawsuit.
Economically, however, you may have accomplished very little.
From the attorney’s perspective, you have not necessarily obtained a meaningful recovery for your client.
And attempting to enforce that judgment can bring another round of collection proceedings, debtor examinations, levies, liens and expense—with no guarantee of success.
⚠️ Bankruptcy Creates Yet Another Collectability Risk
There is also the possibility of bankruptcy.
A judgment arising from an ordinary negligence automobile accident may, under many circumstances, be completely dischargeable if the defendant later qualifies for and receives a Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge.
There are important exceptions. For example, federal bankruptcy law treats certain debts arising from death or personal injury caused by unlawful intoxicated driving differently, and other exceptions to discharge can apply depending upon the facts.
But the larger point remains:
⚠️ A judgment is not the same thing as receiving monetary compensation.
Even a legally valid judgment may ultimately prove difficult or impossible to collect.
That reality is one of the reasons insurance coverage is so important in serious personal injury cases.
✅ Compare That With an Available UIM Policy
Now consider the alternative.
Suppose the responsible driver has already paid the limits of his or her liability policy. An appropriate investigation reveals no meaningful collectible assets.
But the injured client wisely purchased substantial UIM coverage.
Instead of spending enormous amounts of time and money attempting to collect an excess judgment from an individual who may never be able to pay it, the injured client can pursue a contractual insurance benefit that was purchased for precisely this situation.
That does not mean the UIM claim is effortless. The insurance carrier may dispute the value of the claim, and litigation-style discovery or arbitration may become necessary.
But there is a fundamental practical difference:
If the claim is proven, there is an insurance company behind the coverage with a contractual obligation to pay covered benefits up to the applicable limits.
You are no longer trying to turn an uncollectible piece of paper into money.
✅ You are pursuing an insurance benefit you paid for.
Using Your Own UM/UIM Coverage Does Not Make the Accident Your Fault
Some clients understandably worry that making a claim under their own policy somehow puts the accident “on them.”
It does not.
Liability for the collision and the source from which compensation is paid are separate issues.
If another driver caused the accident, pursuing UM/UIM benefits does not suddenly make you responsible for it.
California’s automobile insurance rating system focuses on whether a driver was principally at fault for an accident. The California Department of Insurance advises consumers that when an accident is not their fault, their insurance company does not charge them more because of that accident.
The fact that your own insurer ultimately pays UM/UIM benefits does not transform someone else’s negligence into an at-fault accident on your part.
Of course, insurance premiums can change for many unrelated reasons, including company-wide rate changes and other lawful rating factors. But an innocent driver should not confuse using purchased UM/UIM protection with accepting fault for the collision.
Does the At-Fault Driver Simply “Get Away With It”?
Not necessarily.
The responsible driver’s liability insurance may already have been required to pay every dollar of coverage available under that policy.
There can also be circumstances in which insurers pursue responsible parties themselves, including a variety of collection actions.
For example, when an insurer pays certain claims involving a truly uninsured motorist, California law gives the UM carrier subrogation rights against persons legally responsible for the injury, to the extent of the payment. Insurers also commonly exercise subrogation rights after paying collision or other property-damage claims.
That can mean the insurance company—not the injured client—may later decide whether pursuing reimbursement from the responsible person makes financial sense.
California UIM claims are different. Once the underinsured driver’s applicable liability coverage has been exhausted, California law does not generally give the UIM carrier the same broad subrogation right against the underinsured driver.
The important point for the injured client is that accountability and compensation are not always the same thing.
The purpose of a personal injury claim should be to obtain the best realistic recovery for the injured person—not to spend the client’s recovery pursuing punishment for punishment’s sake.
The Goal Is to Make the Injured Person Whole—or as Close to Whole as the Available Coverage Allows
Personal injury law cannot undo an accident.
Money cannot eliminate a serious injury, restore months of lost life, erase pain, or guarantee that a person will never have future problems.
What the civil justice system can attempt to do is fairly compensate an injured person for the losses that another person caused.
When the defendant’s insurance is insufficient, however, there may simply not be enough money available from that source to make the injured person whole.
That is when UM/UIM coverage can become extraordinarily valuable.
It provides another potential layer of protection when the insurance purchased by the person who caused the accident runs out.
🛡️ The Coverage You Buy Before the Accident May Matter More Than the Insurance Carried by the Person Who Hits You
Most people spend considerable time comparing automobile insurance premiums.
Far fewer spend time thinking about what would happen if they were seriously injured by someone carrying only minimum insurance.
That is worth reconsidering.
We strongly encourage California consumers to carefully review their UM/UIM limits and consider purchasing as much protection as they can reasonably afford. Most commonly, we advise that your UM/UIM coverage match your underlying liability limits.
You may never need it.
Hopefully you never do.
But if you or a family member is seriously injured by an uninsured or underinsured driver, you may discover that the most important automobile insurance purchased for the accident was not the coverage purchased by the person who hit you.
🛡️ It was the coverage you purchased to protect yourself.
The Bottom Line
When another driver causes an accident, pursuing your own UM/UIM coverage is not about letting the responsible person off the hook.
It is not an admission that you were at fault.
And it is not asking your insurance company for a favor.
It is using an insurance benefit you purchased for exactly this situation.
A responsible driver’s policy should be pursued and, in a California UIM claim, the applicable liability limits generally must be exhausted before UIM benefits become available.
Whether it makes sense to pursue the responsible person beyond available insurance should depend upon the facts—including the seriousness of the injuries and damages, and whether meaningful collectible assets actually exist.
There may be little benefit in spending years, incurring substantial attorney fees and litigation costs, accepting the uncertainty inherent in a jury trial, and obtaining a large judgment that ultimately cannot be collected when substantial UM/UIM insurance is available to provide a realistic source of compensation. The economics of litigation matter just as much as the size of a potential verdict on paper.
At the same time, UM/UIM coverage is not automatic money. Liability and damages must still be established and proven.
That is why both adequate insurance coverage before an accident and competent legal representation after a serious accident can make such an enormous difference.
At The Law Offices of Timothy Combs, we investigate available insurance and potential sources of recovery, document and diligently prove our clients’ damages, and work to obtain the maximum recovery reasonably available under the circumstances.
If you have been injured by an uninsured or underinsured driver in California, contact our office for a free consultation.
Disclaimer: This blog post is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Insurance coverage, collectability, judgment enforcement, bankruptcy and personal injury issues depend upon the specific facts, policy language and applicable law. Consult a qualified attorney regarding your individual circumstances.