In Illinois, insurance policies come with uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist. The words sort of tell you what they are. But they provide protection to you if you are injured in a case and it’s the other person’s fault and that person either, number one did not have insurance even though it’s the law in Illinois that every driver must have insurance. But if the other driver injured you and did not have insurance, uninsured motorist is essentially a lawsuit or a claim against your own insurance company. And it provides for a recovery of money just as if you were suing that other driver.

Underinsured motorist is if the other driver has insurance, but your injuries exceed the insurance limit of that other driver. And that’s called underinsured motorist. Now, ever insurance policy in Illinois has both uninsured and underinsured motorist limits. And those limits will be the same amount as your own liability insurance.

The bottom line is if you are injured and the other driver doesn’t have insurance or has very minimal insurance, don’t worry. It does not mean that you can’t make a recovery. We’ll take a look at your own automobile policy, we’ll be able to determine how much your uninsured and underinsured limits are. And depending on those numbers and the numbers of the other driver will determine if there is additional money available to you.