Handel on the law revisited

I was able to tune into Handel on The Law on KFI over the weekend. It was citywide clean up day and I had the van all loaded up with junk that you can’t fit into the trash. While I waited for my turn to unload all of the trash I was able to catch a few minutes of Bill Handel doing his “marginal legal advice”. It's my turn to give some questionable insurance advice too. This is an area were Bill struggles but I appreciate that people continue to call and ask insurance related questions anyways!
The first auto insurance related question he got was about uninsured motorist coverage. Apparently, a driver got hit by an uninsured motorist and the caller was asking if he had to pay his deductible. It sounds like Bill Handel has some experience getting hit by uninsured drivers. Even with his experience he fumbled over how he didn’t have to pay his deductible but wasn’t sure if normally you have to pay.
Here’s how your auto insurance works if you get hit by someone who doesn’t have insurance. Let’s use the premise that the driver hits you, they stop and give you their information. They then tell you that they don’t have insurance or their auto insurance has lapsed. At that point you can go call your auto insurance company and tell them what happened. You give your auto insurance company the drivers information, you give them the license plate off the car that hit you. At that point your insurance company checks your policy limits. If you have collision coverage you will get your car fixed. You would be out of pocket for your deductible however. Your insurance company will try to collect money back from the party that hit you. If they are able to collect money for the damage you will get a check to reimburse you for your deductible. If they are unable to collect money from the driver that hit you then you are stuck paying your deductible. Now there is an exception to this rule. If you carry uninsured deductible waiver you would not have to pay your deductible. Your insurance company would waive it and they would pay from dollar one to fix your car. It's not an expensive coverage and you should include it on your policy.
Let’s look at this situation and now you don’t have collision coverage on your car. If you have uninsured collision coverage you could collect up to 3500 dollars from your insurance company to repair or replace your car and there is no deductible. Now if you don't have collision or uninsured collision then you are completely out of luck. No coverage from your company will be afforded and your only option is to sue the driver who hit you. Call Bill Handel to get a recommendation for a lawyer on that one.
The last situation here would be someone hits you, and then leaves without giving you any information. In this situation you would definitely have to pay your deductible. Even if you have uninsured deductible waiver you are stuck. That coverage only applies if you identify the driver that hit you.  Also, uninsured collision will not pay out in this situation.
The second caller had a question about collecting payment for food spoiled in his refrigerator due to a power outage. Now this person had lost power when his utility company turned it off to prevent fires during windy weather. This was an interesting question and Handel answered it in an interesting way. He started going on a tangent about how the caller should get in line behind all the people who lost their houses in the fire and all the other people who lost property in the fire caused by the utility. Well, actually most policies have a coverage for food spoilage included as part of the home insurance. Now some companies might waive your deductible if you have a small claim. Others might require your losses to exceed your deductible. Some companies might require the claim to be related to a covered loss. That means a wind storm knocks out your power and your food goes bad they would cover it. But, this brings up an interesting question. If the power company is turning your power off to prevent a possible fire would the home insurance company pay out? I would say the best practice would be to call your insurance company and see how they would handle a preemptive power outage.
Those are the items that I thought would be interesting to cover. Hey, Bill Handel. Maybe you should have me on your show to help you out with all these insurance questions. If you or Bill want to get in touch to talk about insurance you can reach me at 951-395-0754.