Uninsured motorist coverage is meant to ensure that you receive the compensation you deserve, even if the driver you injured you doesn’t have insurance. Now, insurance companies are pushing the South Carolina legislature to take away some of that protection.
SB 244 aims to make several changes that would be bad for South Carolina residents in exchange for vague suggestions that insurance premiums will get cheaper. (They probably won’t.)
How Tort Reform Would Change Uninsured Motorist Coverage
Currently, South Carolina uninsured motorist coverage works just like you probably think it does: your uninsured motorist policy covers the damages you could have recovered from the responsible driver if they’d had insurance. Of course, you can only recover up to your policy limits, so the maximum compensation depends on the coverage you purchased.
SB 244 would change the language of the South Carolina uninsured motorist law to allow the insurance company to exclude coverage for punitive or exemplary damages. That means your insurance company wouldn’t have to pay you those damages even if they were within your policy limits and you proved you were entitled to them.
So, What’s the Trade-Off?
You might be wondering what the upside to this change in the law would be. People injured by uninsured motorists would have less protection, even though they’d faithfully paid their insurance premiums for years. Clearly, that doesn’t benefit the people of South Carolina.
The insurance companies’ pitch for this change and other changes that are bad for South Carolina residents is that insurance premiums might go down. No guarantee, of course. And, that’s not what’s happened in other states where they made similar claims. A few years ago, Louisiana residents were told their car insurance rates would drop 10-25% if tort reform passed. It passed, and now they have the highest automobile insurance rates in the country.
So, who benefits? Just the insurance companies. They get to keep more money because they get to pay less to injured people who paid their premiums so they would be protected.
Say No to Tort Reform
Call your South Carolina legislators TODAY to tell them you don’t want to help insurance companies increase their profits at the expense of your friends and neighbors–or even yourself. You can find more information about the bill and search for your legislators here: https://fairsc.com