Most people discover uninsured motorist coverage on the worst possible day, and are surprised to learn they have been paying for it. It is the part of your own policy that steps in when the driver who hit you cannot cover what they did.
The awkward part is what it changes. Up to that moment your insurer was on your side. Once you make a claim under your own coverage, the money comes out of their pocket, and they investigate you the way the other driver’s insurer would have.
The three situations this coverage is for
- The driver had no insurance at all. More common on Maryland roads than most people assume.
- The driver had too little. Maryland’s required minimum limits are modest, and a single hospital stay can exhaust them. Underinsured motorist coverage is what covers the gap between their limit and your actual losses.
- Nobody stopped. A hit-and-run is treated as an uninsured motorist claim, and so in most cases is a crash caused by a phantom vehicle that ran you off the road without contact — though those have stricter proof requirements.
What Maryland requires, and what you may have waived
Maryland requires insurers to offer uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and to offer it at the same limits as your liability coverage unless you waived it down in writing. Many people waived it without registering what they were doing.
Maryland also offers an enhanced form of underinsured coverage that pays on top of what the at-fault driver’s insurer pays, rather than being reduced by it. Which version you hold changes what your claim is worth, and it is one of the first things we check on your declarations page.
Separately, personal injury protection pays toward medical bills and lost wages regardless of fault. Insurers must offer it, and waiving it requires a written waiver, so people often have it without realizing.
The mistake that quietly destroys these claims
Do not settle with the at-fault driver’s insurer before speaking to your own. This is the single most common way a valid uninsured motorist claim is lost.
Your policy gives your insurer rights when it pays you: it can pursue the at-fault driver to recover what it paid out. If you have already signed a release with that driver’s insurer, those rights are gone, and your own insurer can refuse the claim on that basis alone. Maryland has a procedure for handling this properly, with notice and a window for your insurer to respond, and it has to be followed in order.
The offer that arrives early, for the policy limit, with a release attached, is usually the one that triggers this. It looks like the case resolving. It can be the moment the larger claim disappears.
Why your own insurer starts fighting you
Because the money is now theirs. Expect the same tactics the other side would have used:
- A recorded statement requested early, before you know the extent of your injuries
- Treatment called excessive, or gaps in treatment called proof you recovered
- Pre-existing conditions blamed for your current symptoms
- Contributory negligence, argued as hard here as anywhere: under Maryland’s rule, any share of fault assigned to you can defeat the claim entirely
- In a hit-and-run, doubt cast on whether the other vehicle existed
Your policy does require you to cooperate with your own insurer, which is a real obligation and different from the one you owe the other driver’s carrier. Cooperating is not the same as handing them a recorded statement on their terms on day three.
What a hit-and-run claim needs
Report it to the police promptly and to your insurer promptly; both matter, and delay is used against these claims. Beyond that, what helps most is evidence gathered in the first days:
- Nearby business and doorbell camera footage, which is routinely overwritten within days
- Debris and paint transfer from the scene
- Witnesses, including anyone who saw the vehicle leave
- Prompt medical attention, which ties your injuries to the date
This is the work that has to happen immediately, and it is the main reason to call someone before the trail goes cold rather than after the insurer has taken a position.
Deadlines and notice
Two separate clocks run. Maryland generally allows three years to file an injury lawsuit. Your policy separately requires prompt notice to your own insurer, and that duty is far shorter and is a common basis for a denial.
A crash involving a government vehicle can require written notice sooner still. If you are unsure which applies, ask now rather than after a deadline you did not know about has passed.
