Dirk Derrick (00:00):
Welcome to The Legal Truth, the podcast created to provide you general legal information about South Carolina law, lawyers, and the legal process, and hopefully prevent you from being surprised by the unexpected. We will answer many of the questions I've been asked during the past 35 years about South Carolina personal injury claims and workers' compensation claims. We'll also discuss existing laws and proposed changes in the law and how they affect you. My name is Dirk Derrick. I'm the founder of the Derrick Law Firm, and I'm your host.
Voiceover (00:35):
Please see required ethics disclaimers in show notes.
Dirk Derrick (00:42):
Welcome to The Legal Truth Podcast. We're here with Pearl Carey, the co-host of the podcast. Welcome, Pearl.
Pearl Carey (00:49):
Thank you so much for that introduction. I'm really excited to be here.
Dirk Derrick (00:52):
We're talking today about the truth about being damaged by an uninsured driver. We're going to go over some questions about what uninsured coverage is, what happens when you get in a wreck with an uninsured driver, and what you can do to protect your family.
Pearl Carey (01:08):
Absolutely. So, first question, what happens if I am hit by an uninsured driver in South Carolina?
Dirk Derrick (01:14):
Well unfortunately, there's a lot of people driving who don't have insurance in South Carolina, but we do have mandatory uninsured motorist coverage in South Carolina. What will happen if someone hits you and damages you or your family and they have no insurance, you have an option. You can look and see if that person has assets that can be used to pay the damages that person caused you.
Pearl Carey (01:37):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (01:39):
It is unusual that that person will have assets that will cover your damages. The other option is to file against your own uninsured motorist coverage on your own vehicle. In South Carolina, that uninsured motorist coverage, or UM coverage, is mandatory. If you have insurance in South Carolina, you have uninsured motorist coverage in the same amount as your liability coverage. The minimum limits are $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident. What that means is that coverage will pay up to $25,000 in damages for anyone in your vehicle who was injured by a driver who had no insurance.
Pearl Carey (02:24):
So what happens if my damages exceed that amount?
Dirk Derrick (02:27):
Well, it can be uncollectible unless you have other policies. One of the nice things about uninsured motorist coverage is that it is stackable with other uninsured motorist coverage on other vehicles in your household that when the cars are owned by resident relatives, for instance, family of four, mother, father, two high school kids, they got four vehicles. If they have the minimum limits of uninsured motorist coverage of $25, $50, and they're injured in a wreck, they can stack those four coverages. So one person can have 25 times four, $100,000 worth of coverage, and the family can have $200,000 worth of coverage. So, the stackability makes that coverage good if somebody has more than one vehicle.
Pearl Carey (03:20):
Let's say you do stack the coverage and it's still not enough, are you kind of, for lack of a better term, out of luck or what happens from there?
Dirk Derrick (03:26):
It can be uncollectible. A lot of people, their response is that's not fair and it's not fair. But if somebody does not have coverage and does not have assets, the only chance you're going to get to recover for the damages they cause is for you to have your own uninsured motorist coverage on your vehicle.
Pearl Carey (03:46):
And you said that that is mandatory in the state of South Carolina?
Dirk Derrick (03:50):
It is mandatory.
Pearl Carey (03:51):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (03:51):
I'd recommend people have a lot more than $25,000 worth of coverage. It is important to realize that when you're buying auto insurance, you're trying not just to cover a car and not just to have liability coverage to cover the people you may hurt with your negligence, but if you want to protect your family, you got to make sure you have enough uninsured motorist coverage-
Pearl Carey (04:16):
For everyone.
Dirk Derrick (04:16):
... for everyone in your car.
Pearl Carey (04:17):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (04:18):
$50,000 for a family in a car may not go very far in any kind of significant auto accident.
Pearl Carey (04:26):
So, I know that you mentioned you can get damages by suing the uninsured driver. How does that typically work?
Dirk Derrick (04:33):
That covers any verdict you would get against the at-fault driver.
Pearl Carey (04:37):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (04:38):
In South Carolina, you don't sue insurance companies. You sue at-fault drivers. So let's say an at-fault driver has no insurance, they caused the wreck. We know what the uninsured motorist coverage is and that's the insurance we'd be going after. If you go to court, and people don't believe this, but when you go to court, your insurance company that you're paying the premium to will hire a lawyer to defend the person who has no insurance.
Pearl Carey (05:05):
Oh my goodness.
Dirk Derrick (05:07):
When you're in court, the jury does not know that the person who caused the wreck did not have insurance. It's inadmissible evidence. They never know that.
Pearl Carey (05:17):
Why?
Dirk Derrick (05:17):
Our law in South Carolina is that the jury does not know about insurance coverage because it could influence their decision.
Pearl Carey (05:24):
Wow.
Dirk Derrick (05:24):
So if we go to court in that situation, if you had to go to court, and the at-fault driver, if he shows up, would be at the other table and there'd be a lawyer there, that lawyer would have been hired by your insurance company to fight you in court.
Pearl Carey (05:39):
Oh my goodness. That's crazy. I would have never guessed that.
Dirk Derrick (05:42):
Yeah. People, when we do focus groups up here and start talking about coverages, people can't believe that. But they said, well, if it's my coverage, they should pay me. And I said, "Well, it doesn't work quite like that."
Pearl Carey (05:53):
In theory, maybe.
Dirk Derrick (05:55):
In theory. It's an unusual situation for people who are in it. It is very normal for us. I mean it happens a lot, we file an uninsured motorist coverage that claims against our own client's insurance company.
Pearl Carey (06:07):
So let's say that this case does go to trial, what might the penalty be for someone who is uninsured?
Dirk Derrick (06:14):
That's totally separate from what we do.
Pearl Carey (06:16):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (06:17):
If someone is uninsured at a wreck, they will probably get fined. It could be worse than a fine if it's multiple times that they're driving and cause wrecks without insurance, I think they can lose their license. I think if they do it enough, I mean they can get some jail time. That's the criminal aspect.
Pearl Carey (06:35):
Okay. So kind of separate from your-
Dirk Derrick (06:37):
It's totally separate from the civil, well, the part that we handle where they can be punished from a criminal standpoint. It is surprising how many people drive without insurance without a driver's license.
Pearl Carey (06:49):
So that just makes that uninsured motorist coverage very important.
Dirk Derrick (06:53):
Very important. If you're going to protect your family, it is very important to have.
Pearl Carey (06:57):
Absolutely. So I kind of want to turn back to the talk about maybe suing someone for the assets they have if they are uninsured. What kind of assets are we talking about?
Dirk Derrick (07:07):
Well, in South Carolina, I mean if you file and get a judgment against someone, you have a judgment. The first thing that's going to pay that judgment is any insurance coverage that covers that at-fault person, at-fault driver, their coverage going to pay first.
Pearl Carey (07:25):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (07:25):
Anything in excess to that will be a judgment against the at-fault party. There are ways to do what's called supplemental proceedings and to go after people's assets. It doesn't happen very often. The truth is, in 35 years, I don't remember ever having a case where there's an uninsured driver who has assets. The assets have to be somewhat substantial. We have laws in South Carolina that protects the assets of wrongdoers up to a certain amount. So, you're talking about real estate that doesn't have mortgages on it and liquid assets, and that's just very, very unusual. I've never seen it in an uninsured motorist situation.
Pearl Carey (08:13):
I mean I guess you can assume that a lot of these results coming from these cases are unpredictable, but for the most part, what can you as an attorney expect to see in one of these cases?
Dirk Derrick (08:22):
Well, usually when we find out that there's no insurance on the at-fault driver's vehicle, we then look to make sure that the person driving that vehicle doesn't have another vehicle that may have insurance on it.
Pearl Carey (08:34):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (08:35):
Make sure that person wasn't working for somebody at the time where you may be able to find some coverage. But if you go down that line and can't find any coverage, then your remedy is uninsured motorist coverage. And once you exhaust that, that's it. Insurance coverage does not set the value of claims. It very often sets the maximum value of claim-
Pearl Carey (08:59):
So you might not get all of it?
Dirk Derrick (08:59):
... because of collectability. You got to be able to collect it.
Pearl Carey (09:03):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (09:04):
We talked about this in a previous podcast, but every case, the value of every case is determined by three legs, like a three-legged stool.
Pearl Carey (09:11):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (09:12):
Do you remember?
Pearl Carey (09:12):
I do remember.
Dirk Derrick (09:13):
Okay. What's the three legs
Pearl Carey (09:15):
Damages. Help me out with the other two.
Dirk Derrick (09:18):
Liability and collectability.
Pearl Carey (09:18):
Got it.
Dirk Derrick (09:22):
So every case is determined by the three-legged stool. You got to have a liability leg, a damage leg, and a collectability leg. And what you mean is you have to prove all those aspects. If you have a three-legged stool that has a weak leg, when you sit on it, you fall, is how my professor taught me in law school.
(09:39):
So, what we're talking about here with the coverage, we're talking about the collectability leg. So you can have somebody who had terrible conduct on the highway that caused a wreck, people who have terrible injuries, but without the ability to collect the damages, and if you don't have a strong leg there, you just don't have a strong case because you can go get a piece of paper, a judgment from the courthouse, but you may not have a way to collect it beyond what you have on your own policy for uninsured motorist coverage.
Pearl Carey (10:08):
And so, what can kind of prevent that collectability? I know we talked a little bit about the type of insurance they have, if they have it in another car, things like that that can allow for collectability, but what can kind of prevent that?
Dirk Derrick (10:19):
The only thing that you can do to prevent that is to buy the coverage yourself on your vehicle. And you can do that. Fortunately in South Carolina, you can buy liability insurance. A lot of times people say, "Well, liability is when I hurt somebody." Well, the people you hurt may be your family members in the back seat. You want plenty of liability coverage so if you make a mistake and hurt your family, they would have a policy to file against. The uninsured motorist coverage covers you when somebody has no insurance and causes damage to your family. You need plenty of that.
(10:56):
And then there's underinsured motorist coverage when someone has insurance but don't have enough to cover all the damages, you need plenty of that. So I encourage people to get as much as they can buy on liability, uninsured, underinsured, and on collision, a lot of people don't put collision on their car, but that can be a problem if there's a dispute about property damage afterwards.
Pearl Carey (11:20):
Gotcha.
Dirk Derrick (11:20):
So, all four of those need to be purchased at a limit that somebody can afford to protect their family. What people don't know about insurance is that the largest part of the premium is the minimum limits and the cost of collision on the car. So, if you get a minimum limits and collision on the car, you may pay $400 every six months. But if you look, you may be able to get eight or 10 times that coverage for another $40 in those six months. So instead of paying $400, you're paying $440 or $450 and got 10 times the coverage. So, as you increase your coverage, it doesn't go up 10 times to get 10 times the coverage. It may go up one 10th to get 10 times the coverage. So, people need to talk to their agents to see how cheap it is to move up the coverage so that their family's protected.
Pearl Carey (12:17):
Absolutely. Just in case, because you never know when things like that can happen.
Dirk Derrick (12:20):
Oh, it happens a lot and it's a tough conversation to have with people. If they've got $500,000 worth of medical bills, they're out of work, and the person who hit them has no insurance, may not have a driver's license, and they've got state minimum uninsured motorist coverage, then that's a hard conversation. There's no way to help them.
Pearl Carey (12:40):
Because the collectability leg, like we discussed before, maybe isn't that strong.
Dirk Derrick (12:43):
Absolutely.
Pearl Carey (12:44):
So kind of turning back to the beginning of one of these situations, let's say someone's hit by an uninsured driver. What is the first thing I should do if I do realize, oh no, they're uninsured?
Dirk Derrick (12:54):
You may find out at the scene. The officer may tell you they have no insurance, you may not. A lot of times they give them a name of an insurance company and then you contact the insurance company and they don't have insurance. Or we call to set up a claim, they said, "That was canceled."
Pearl Carey (13:08):
Wow.
Dirk Derrick (13:08):
So sometimes we find later, sometimes we find right after the accident. From our standpoint, we start the investigation to see where the coverage exists and what coverage exists. If we determine that the vehicle in which he was driving doesn't have insurance and we start going to the next step and the next step and the next step to find all coverages that exist, and we do an asset check too, so we can tell our clients, "Okay, here's what funds are available to pay for damages."
Pearl Carey (13:39):
And so, how do I know if I need to contact an attorney for one of these situations?
Dirk Derrick (13:44):
You always contact the Derrick Law firm. That shouldn't even be... You work here, you know that, don't you?
Pearl Carey (13:48):
Sorry. I need to be more of an advocate.
Dirk Derrick (13:51):
My answer when people say, "Do I need a lawyer?" And there's people call up here and we tell them they don't need a lawyer. My answer is if you want somebody to represent you and build your case, you need to get a professional to do it. If you want to do it yourself, you can do it yourself. It's like, I love using the home building analogy.
Pearl Carey (14:10):
You yourself.
Dirk Derrick (14:10):
You can build your own house and I could do my own countertop work. but-
Pearl Carey (14:16):
It may not look that great.
Dirk Derrick (14:17):
It may not. So it is what people want to do. If somebody calls up in and they say, "Hey, I got bumped. I went to the hospital. I'm fine," we'll tell them they don't need an attorney and we'll spend some time with them to tell them what they need to get together, how to file a claim-
Pearl Carey (14:33):
So we can still be helpful.
Dirk Derrick (14:33):
Absolutely. I mean we try to help people. I tell our attorneys, if somebody needs help, spend some time with them because everybody doesn't need an attorney. If somebody calls and they need ongoing care, if they continue to have problems, if they're having trouble with the insurance company, we get involved.
Pearl Carey (14:50):
So, Dirk, is there anything else in particular that you think that someone who's maybe been hit by an uninsured motorist needs to know?
Dirk Derrick (14:57):
I think people need to be careful with what they're signing with any situations, even those your insurance company, you got to be careful not to sign a release before you finish your treatment, you know what your damages are, especially if you have more than one car in your household where you may be able to stack this uninsured coverage. If you sign a release on the first coverage, you won't be able to file on the second and third coverage.
Pearl Carey (15:24):
Oh, okay.
Dirk Derrick (15:24):
You can't. You can do a policy, once you sign a release against the driver who caused the wreck, you waive any other coverages that you're not getting paid. So I think the biggest thing I tell people, be careful what they sign so they don't waive any coverages that may still exist that they don't know about.
(15:45):
Another thing you should know about uninsured motorist coverage is that it's treated differently than somebody's liability insurance. Since you pay for it, the state of South Carolina has determined, and there's a law that says since you paid for it, if you sign an assignment with a hospital when you went in, that assignment is unenforceable against your uninsured motorist money.
Pearl Carey (16:10):
Oh, okay.
Dirk Derrick (16:11):
If you have Blue Cross and Blue Shield and they paid your medical bills, that is unenforceable against your uninsured motorist coverage. For instance, if a third party causes you harm, liability coverage, they pay you. And if you sign an assignment at the hospital, the hospital can get some of that liability money. If your health insurance pay your medical bills, and when you get money from liability, if they have a subrogation right and they put us on notice that they want some of their money back, we have to pay them some of that liability money.
(16:45):
When it's uninsured motorist coverage, since you bought the insurance, state insurance policy can't get their money out of that uninsured motorist proceeds and assignment's ineffective against the proceeds of uninsured motorist coverage. There's a few entities that can still be paid out of those proceeds, Medicare, a federal ERISA plan may have language that they can get some money out, but it's harder for third parties to get money out of your recovery when it's uninsured motorist.
Pearl Carey (17:18):
Okay. So that's important too. That's a great benefit of having that. Well, thank you so much for spending your time speaking to me about this today, Dirk. I've definitely learned a lot, so I appreciate it.
Dirk Derrick (17:29):
Okay. If anybody has questions, they can call us. We don't charge to give some insurance advice over the phone. I do have a little booklet I wrote years ago on our website that's entitled Three Feet From Disaster, and it's just what coverages you need to have to protect your family. And after the event, it's too late. So if you look and see what kind of coverages would protect your family and see what the cost of that coverage is, you ought to at least see what the coverage cost. Because after the event, it's a hard conversation to tell people they don't have enough coverage.
Pearl Carey (18:08):
Absolutely. Well, definitely to all of our listeners, it's super important to start looking at policies and investigating that because the best time to take a look is before an accident occurs. I know I'll definitely have Dirk review mine in the near future. You never know.
Dirk Derrick (18:22):
Thank you, Pearl.
Pearl Carey (18:23):
Thank you so much.
Voiceover (18:24):
Thank you for joining us on The Legal Truth Podcast. If you have questions that you would like answered on a future episode, please send them to [email protected]. If you would like to speak to us directly, call us at (843) 248-7486. If you find the podcast valuable, please leave us a five star review and share The Legal Truth with your neighbor, friend, or family member who is seeking reliable information about a South Carolina personal injury or workers' compensation claim.
(18:54):
Dirk J. Derrick of the Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers is responsible for the production of this podcast, located at 901 North Main Street, Conway, South Carolina.
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Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers has included the information on this podcast as a service to the general public. Use of this podcast and any related materials does not in any manner constitute an attorney-client relationship between Derrick Law firm Injury Lawyers and the user. While the information on this podcast is about legal issues, it is not intended as legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your particular state. Anyone seeking specific legal advice or assistance should retain an attorney. Any prior results mentioned do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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The content reflects the personal views and opinions of the participants and the podcast and are not intended as endorsements of any views or products. This podcast could contain inaccuracies. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute legal advice and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up to date as laws continue to change. In this podcast, you'll hear information about focus groups. Please note that not all of the firm's cases are presented to a focus group. Additionally, when speaking about juries or jurors in relation to a focus group, we are speaking of focus group participants and not actual trial juries or jurors.