If you have Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists' (UM/UIM) Coverage with your own insurance company, you can make a claim with them for your losses like medical bills, lost wages, physical pain and disability, etc. As our book "Fully Exposed: How Your Insurance Company Is Stripping Your Policy" (available for FREE on our website), UM/UIM coverage can be a life raft if hit by a hit and run driver.
All Ohio insurance policies require you to have "corroborative evidence" (something objective like physical evidence or witnesses) that the hit and run driver caused the collision, as I have written about here. That post will explain what you or your attorney must do to gather your "corroborative evidence" in order to proceed with your uninsured motorists' claim.
But there's a real trap door lurking in your policy that you need to know about to stop your insurance company from weaseling out of your uninsured motorists' claim. It's this little clause, buried in the fine print of your policy (hell, it's all fine print if you think about it):
The person making the claim, under the uninsured motor vehicle coverage, must report a 'hit and run' accident to the police within 24 hours and to us within 30 days.
It's real simple: run off the road or crashed by an idiot hit and run driver? CALL THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY! They'll file a report, and it will be on record. And then call your insurance company. Otherwise, you'll eventually get a letter from you own insurance company denying your claim for failure to notify the police, along with how much they value you as a customer and of course wish you the best with that leg fracture and surgery...
The takeaway? These insurance policies are set up to give your own company numerous opportunities to wash your claim down the drain. They know full well that most people don't read all this fine print.
I bet they hate Google and blogs like this...
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