Insurance Issues and Problems in DUI Cases

When you are hit and injured by a driver who is driving under the influence, there is a contradiction or a duality involved in the case.

On the one hand, juries rightfully punish a drunk driver, and have very little sympathy for them. So little sympathy in fact, that the law even allows you to get punitive damages from someone who injured you while driving drunk. In that way, while no case is easy or as straightforward as you think, when it comes to DUI, the ability to prove liability becomes much easier than it would in a”normal” car accident case.

Insurance Problems

But DUIs present one problem that you may not have anticipated: insurance issues.

Many car insurance policies have exclusions, based on intentional or criminal behavior. Insurance only insures for accidents—not for things that someone does intentionally, or for criminal actions.

The problem with a DUI that causes an accident and injury, is that it can be seen in one of two ways.

On the one hand, it can be seen as an accident. Most people don’t drive drunk with the intention of harming anybody, they have no ill will, and the act of crashing is not an intentional one.

On the other hand, driving drunk is a criminal act, intentional or not. Additionally, the act of, and decision to, get behind the wheel of a car is intentional, regardless of whether the ultimate outcome – a car accident – was intended or not.

Exclusions in the Insurance Policy

Before you say “drunk driving is an intentional act,” bear in mind that if someone hits you because of a DUI, and you sue, there is a chance that even if they have insurance, that insurance company may refuse to insure them because the insurance company will take the position that the act of drunk driving is intentional and criminal, and thus, is excluded under the insurance policy (this depends on the exact wording of the policy itself).

This is bad for you, if you are the one injured by the drunk driver. Without insurance, you may be left to chase the Defendant, individually, to satisfy any settlement or jury verdict that may be reached in your case. And if that Defendant has little or no assets, you may never actually see whatever amount you settled for or won in trial.

Fighting the Insurance Company

Defendants who drive drunk, and who are faced with their own insurance company denying them coverage, will often get their own, private attorneys, to try to convince their insurance company to insure them. In that way, you and the other driver have the same interest—the desire for the insurance company to accept coverage for the DUI.

Note that many insurance companies have different policies when it comes to covering DUI related losses. Some will cover a stranger’s damages (you, as the innocent injured victim), but not their own insured’s damages, or some other combination of damages.

Ask us how to handle the insurance problems in your DUI accident injury case. Call the Boston personal injury lawyers The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today at 617-275-4200 for help.

Source:

progressive.com/answers/dui-and-insurance/