Excerpt from: Motorcycle Lawyer
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| September 11, 2006 | | Time for Legislative Action | Frequently, the driver of a car that hits a motorcycle, does not have enough insurance coverage to pay for the damage that's caused.
Case law and common sense tell you that it is in everyone (but the insurance company's) interest to disclose the policy limit.
This promotes prompt settlement, by letting the rider know that there is inadequate coverage, and that underinsured coverage may apply. It helps the driver of the car, by putting the facts on the table at an early stage, so the rider's attorney can provide advice.
The only one who benefits by hiding this information, is the insurance company, who can stall a little bit by creating a pretext for withholding the information. The current fashion is to claim that the information can't be disclosed, because the insured has not given permission.
This doesn't make sense when, in the usual case, the insured was neither asked for permission to disclose the limit amounts, nor has anybody explained to the insured the potential effect of the non-disclosure. Of course, the most common result of non-disclosure is that the insured gets sued. Then, when the inadequate coverage becomes clear, it is much more likely that the rider's lawyer will take a hard look at going after the driver personally.
Insurance companies simply seem to be incapable of giving up the game playing, and they aren't likely to do so in this case unless the legislature steps in. There is already a statutory duty to confirm or deny coverage, but that doesn't seem to have much impact since the courts are not willing to give teeth to the law.
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