Auto Insurance Checkup

Good Morning, welcome to Legal Tip Tuesday at QuatriniRafferty. My name is Joyce Novotny-Prettiman, and I’d like to talk to you a little bit today about your auto insurance. You may have received some paperwork from your auto insurance company in the mail and wonder why you received that. It actually maybe because of a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court Case that we talked about in a previous Legal Tip Tuesday.

That case was decided in January of 2019 and it’s called Gallagher V. GEICO. It’s really important that you understand what that case stands for because the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued a consumer-friendly decision that basically says that you have to understand what you are rejecting as far as your insurance coverage goes, and the insurance company cannot put language in a policy that takes away coverage that you purchased. So that decision is based on uninsured and under insured motorist coverage. And the paperwork that you get is going to ask you some questions about that type of coverage.

So, it’s a good time to just hit the pause button and understand what you’re signing before you send that paperwork back to the insurance company. So uninsured and under insured motorist coverage is very important. It protects you if you or a family member is hurt in an auto accident, and the other person who’s at fault doesn’t have enough insurance coverage. Unfortunately, we’ve had many people come to our office who don’t have that insurance coverage selected on their insurance policy, and that means they don’t have the coverage they in in the case of a serious injury.

So, if you get paperwork form your insurance company, don’t sign a rejection of stacking coverage or a rejection of underinsured motorist coverage without knowing what you are doing if you do that. We always recommended that you have uninsured and under insured motorist coverage in place and that it should be at least the limits of your liability policy and that you stack it. We’re always happy to help you understand that paperwork if you give us a call at QuatriniRafferty. So it’s a great time for an insurance checkup, give us a call if you need help.