Like every other state in the country, Kentucky has laws controlling how people drive, limiting their ability to do so under certain circumstances. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and adults must comply with the law in their state if they want to operate a motor vehicle on public roads.
One of the conditions for you legally driving on public roadways is obtaining a license for yourself as a driver and registering and licensing your vehicle. However, you also need to carry liability insurance on your vehicle or the state won’t let you drive legally. If you drive without insurance, you are subject to ticketing and liable for any damage you cause at the wheel.
Liability insurance protects you from the financial risk that occurs if you cause an accident or injury to someone else. When someone causes a crash with your vehicle, you depend on their policy to cover you. Unfortunately, there are many circumstances in which insurance coverage may not adequately protect you.
The other driver might be underinsured
It is not common for the Kentucky State Legislature to review its insurance requirements. The law in place has not seen an update in some time, which means that the amount of insurance required doesn’t truly reflect the expenses of modern medicine or the cost of late-model vehicles. Of course, the individual who purchases the policy gets to decide how much coverage they want, which can often include substantially more coverage than what the state requires.
However, many people purchased the minimum policy they can legally carry, which means they may only have $25,000 for property damage coverage. The policy must also provide $25,000 in medical coverage for one person or $50,000 for two or more people who get hurt in a crash. Those limits mean that this is the most that you or your insurance company can bill the other driver’s policy for after a crash.
You could get offered an inappropriate settlement
Even if the other driver has a good policy, it’s possible that their insurance company is going to try to force you into an inappropriately low settlement. To keep their costs low, insurance companies will often make a very low first settlement offer in the hope that injured people desperate for compensation will jump at the settlements before they realize it won’t actually offset their expenses.
It can be hard to know whether a settlement offer is reasonable and what options you have when the other driver doesn’t carry adequate insurance. Making the wrong decision could mean limiting your financial options in the future. Talking to an experienced Kentucky personal injury attorney can help you explore your options for compensation after a major collision.
