My car accident caused by another driver. Can I still collect money from my insurance company?

What your insurance company might pay you starts with what your policy entails.

If you have the minimum amount of auto insurance required by Illinois law, then you have coverage that is supposed to pay you for  a car accident caused by uninsured motorists.

Most of the auto insurance drivers are required to buy in Illinois is liability insurance. This coverage makes payments for injuries the policyholder causes others. So, typically, if you are in an accident caused by someone else, you seek a settlement through that driver’s liability insurance.

However, as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates, more than 12 percent of drivers lack required insurance. Even if they have the requisite coverage, it may be at the minimum levels and fail to cover the full amount of your losses. In fact, this tends to happen in severe accidents.

If the driver lacks insurance or has inadequate insurance, you can turn to your uninsured / underinsured (UM/UIM) coverage. At a minimum, your uninsured (UM) policy should pay $20,000 per person and $40,000 per accident for bodily injury caused by an uninsured motorist. Of course, you may have purchased more than the minimum. Your coverage would depend on the amount you purchased. If you have higher underinsured limits than the at-fault driver, you may be able to collect the difference between the policies.

So, yes – if you have coverage that applies, you can probably collect some money from your insurance company after a crash caused by another driver.

The question is: How much will you recover? You would like to get the maximum amount that your coverage provides. However, your insurer would like to pay you less – perhaps much less.

Even when you have what looks like a simple, straightforward claim, you can usually benefit from having help from Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C.