Hit by an uninsured driver in Texas

Three situations, one coverage

UM/UIM answers all three of these, and people usually only know about the first.

No policy at all. The other driver was uninsured. Your UM coverage steps into their place.

A policy too small to matter. They carried the state minimum and your injuries went past it. Your UIM coverage covers the gap above their limit, up to yours.

They never stopped. A hit and run counts as uninsured, provided you can show contact occurred. Report it promptly. A phantom vehicle that forced you off the road without touching you is a harder claim and usually needs an independent witness.

Finding out whether you have it

Look at your declarations page, the summary sheet your insurer sends each renewal period. There will be a line reading UM, UIM or UM/UIM with a limit beside it, or a rejection on file. Texas requires the rejection to be in writing, so if nobody can produce a signed one, the coverage is generally there at your liability limits.

Households often have more than one route in. A resident relative’s policy, a policy on a vehicle you were a passenger in, sometimes an employer’s policy if you were working. Ask about every vehicle in the household before concluding you have nothing.

The part that surprises people

A UM/UIM claim is a claim against your own insurer, and it is adversarial. The company that has taken your premiums for a decade is now the party paying, which means it investigates fault, disputes treatment and negotiates like any opposing insurer. Being polite to your own carrier does not change that position.

The consent trap, described exactly

Here is the sequence that destroys these claims, and it looks entirely reasonable while it happens.

The at-fault driver’s carrier offers its full limit, say thirty thousand. You sign the release, bank the check, and only then discover the surgery costs ninety. You turn to your own UIM coverage for the sixty thousand difference, and your carrier declines, because the release you signed extinguished its right to go after the driver for its share.

Nearly every policy contains that consent requirement. So the order of operations is fixed: notify your carrier in writing of any offer, and get written permission before you sign anything. Carriers routinely grant it. What they will not do is grant it afterwards.

Adding up every policy that might respond

One crash frequently reaches more coverage than the obvious policy. Before concluding you have nothing, work through this list.

• Your own policy, on any vehicle you own
• A resident relative’s policy, which commonly extends to household members
• The policy on the vehicle you were riding in as a passenger
• An employer’s commercial policy, if you were driving for work
• A rideshare platform’s contingent coverage, if the app was running

Each is a separate claim with its own notice requirements, and whether they can be combined depends on the wording rather than on a general rule. Gather the declarations pages first and let somebody read them together.

Proving a driver who never stopped

A hit-and-run claim usually turns on physical contact, so the evidence is your vehicle. Photograph the damage before repair, including paint transfer, and keep the shop’s estimate describing the impact.

Report it to police promptly and get an incident number. Then look for cameras within sight of the spot, since doorbell and business footage is routinely overwritten within a fortnight, and nobody preserves it unless somebody asks.

Before you sign anything

A UM claim is governed by the contract, not only by statute, and the contract sets deadlines of its own. Have the policy read by an attorney licensed in Texas, because a signature given to the other side’s carrier can quietly close the coverage that was going to pay for the rest.