Agenda - Council - 02/26/2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

The UM/UIM coverages are intended to assure that an injured driver will be compensated if s/he is injured in an accident caused by an uninsured or underinsured driver. The UMIUIM coverage steps into the place of the liability insurance that the driver should have had. Keep in mind that in the case of city vehicles, an injury to the driver while operating a city vehicle would in most cases be covered by workers' compensation. The amounts the individual would be able to recover from UM/UIM would be in addition to the medical, indemnity, and other benefits paid under work comp. In many cases, it would amount to a double recovery for the individual's injuries. A city might decide to carry a higher limit for a couple reasons: if they believe the workers' compensation benefits are insufficient to compensate their injured employees; or if they want to make sure that non - employees riding in city vehicles are fully compensated in the event of an accident with an uninsured or underinsured vehicle. (Note that in most cases the passenger's own UM/UIM would also respond.) LMCIT now gives the cities who participate in the primary liability coverage the option to waive the $300,000 per claimant statutory liability limit. What's the effect if we do this? If the city chooses the "waiver" option, the city and LMCIT no longer can use the statutory limit of $300,000 per claimant as a defense. Because the waiver increases the exposure, the premium is roughly 3% higher for coverage under the waiver option. If the city waives the statutory limit, an individual claimant could therefor recover up to $1,000,000 in damages on a claim. Of course, the individual would still have to prove to the court or jury that s/he really does have that amount of damages. Also, the statutory limit of $1,000,000 per occurrence would still apply; that would limit the individual's recovery to a lesser amount if there were multiple claimants. Why would the city choose to pay more in order to get the waiver - option coverage? Does it give the city better protection? No. Buying coverage under the "waiver" option doesn't protect the city any better. The benefit is to the injured party. The statutory liability limit only comes into play in a case where 1. the city is in fact liable; and 2. the injured party's actual proven damages are greater than the statutory limit. Very literally, applying the statutory liability limit means that an injured party won't be fully compensated for his/her actual, proven damages that were caused by city negligence. Some cities as a matter of public policy may want to have more assets available to compensate their 4 -121—