An estimated 30% of drivers in Shelby County are uninsured.
How can you protect yourself from uninsured drivers in Tennessee? First off, you always need to have uninsured motorist coverage. Find out more in the video.
Video Transcript
Hello, this is Darrell Castle. I’m an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Tennessee and on this video, I’m talking about uninsured motorists, or having an accident with an uninsured motorist.
No one cares that anyone is uninsured until he has an accident and causes damage to somebody else – that’s the purpose of insurance, obviously. In most states, including my state of Tennessee, it’s unlawful not to be insured and drive on the public highways but the fact that it’s unlawful doesn’t mean there’s any real punishment for it.
Here in Tennessee, you get a ticket – a ticket for not having insurance. And you get insurance, you pay the ticket and your fine. If you don’t, they pull your driver’s license. But they’re a lot of irresponsible people out there who drive without insurance and sometimes they have a driver’s license and sometimes they don’t – but they don’t seem to care.
Here in Shelby County, which is Memphis, Tennessee, in my county, it’s estimated that 30% of the drivers do not have insurance. That’s a lot folks. It means that when you have an accident, you have a 30% chance, or almost a one-third chance of the other driver not having insurance.
Well, what if the other driver is responsible for the accident? What if he caused it, not you?
You’re driving down the street one day and you get rear-ended by somebody on the highway and you’re injured by that, you have to go to the doctor, you incur medical bills, medical expenses – who pays for that if that driver does not have insurance?
The answer is – you need to have insurance yourself. If you have insurance yourself, you don’t have to worry about it because that’s what uninsured motorist coverage is for. It’s designed to cover the irresponsible people that are out there driving around. It’s self-protection from irresponsible, uninsured drivers.
Insurance companies in Tennessee, by law, have to offer it to you when you buy insurance. They don’t want you to buy it sometimes, not always, but some companies would rather you not buy it. But in order for them to sell you insurance but not sell you uninsured motorists coverage, you have to actually sign a written statement declining the coverage.
So, sometimes companies will put a statement in front of you and say “here, sign this so that you can have the lowest possible price.”
You should always take the uninsured motorists coverage, folks. You really need it in a county like Memphis, Tennessee where so many people are uninsured.
You might have a serious accident and you have no compensation whatsoever if you don’t cover yourself through uninsured motorist coverage.
So that is one thing that you can do to protect yourself. It is a very wise choice in this day and age, so good luck out there, folks.