Missouri requires drivers to carry liability insurance, but plenty of drivers on the road do not, and plenty more carry only the state minimum, which is often not enough to cover a serious injury. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage exist for exactly that gap, and the claim runs against your own insurer rather than someone else's.
Updated September 2026
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Uninsured motorist (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage let you make a claim against your own auto policy when the driver who caused the crash has no insurance at all, or has insurance that is not enough to cover what the injury is actually worth. It is one of the most useful coverages a driver can carry and one of the least understood.
The reason it is misunderstood is structural: the claim is against your own insurer, which makes it feel less adversarial than it is. It is not. What follows is how the coverage works, what it pays for, and the point at which a claim against your own company deserves the same scrutiny as a claim against anyone else's.
“Uninsured” and “underinsured” sound similar and work differently. Both matter, and most drivers never think about either until they need one.
UM coverage applies when the at-fault driver carries no liability insurance at all, which includes a hit-and-run driver who is never identified and, on many policies, a driver who was operating a stolen vehicle. If there is no policy to pursue, UM is frequently the only source of recovery.
UIM applies when the at-fault driver does have insurance, but the limits are too low to cover the injury. A driver carrying only the state minimum can cause damage far beyond what that policy pays, and UIM is what closes the difference, up to your own policy's limit.
Some households carry UM or UIM coverage on more than one vehicle or policy, and whether those amounts can be added together (“stacked”) depends on the exact policy language and has been litigated both ways in Missouri. This is one of the first things worth having a lawyer read your policy for, because it can change what is actually available to you.
Because the claim runs against your own insurer, it is easy to assume it will be handled generously. The company's financial interest is the same as any insurer's: pay as little as the policy allows. A UM or UIM claim still needs medical documentation and evidence of the crash, built the same way any injury claim is.
A driver caused a serious head injury and did not carry enough insurance to cover it. The at-fault policy would not come close.
We recovered the full $250,000 policy limit through our client's own underinsured motorist coverage — the exact protection that coverage exists to provide.
The at-fault driver's insurance was never going to be enough. Our client's own policy was there to close the gap, but only because it was pursued as its own claim rather than assumed to pay out automatically.
Past results do not guarantee a future outcome, and every case depends on its own facts. These are public-record results that show what trial-prepared representation can produce.
A head injury caused by an underinsured driver. We recovered $250,000 through our client's own insurance coverage. Read full story →
Defense offered $0 and blamed the mother for her son's death. After five days of trial, a St. Charles County jury delivered $20,025,000. Read full story →
A red light runner. Multiple disc replacements, a lower back fusion, and blood clots. A St. Louis County jury returned $10,000,000. Read full story →
An active grandmother was left with permanent chronic neck pain. The insurer blamed her age and offered $14,937. The jury returned $2.5 million. Read full story →
The report documents the crash and, in a hit-and-run, is often the only contemporaneous record that a collision happened at all.
Many drivers do not know whether they have this coverage or assume it matches their liability limits. Ask your agent for your declarations page if you are not sure.
Policies carry notice deadlines and cooperation requirements. Missing one can give the insurer a technical reason to dispute the claim later.
Medical records, missed work, and the ongoing effect on daily life all matter here exactly as much as they would in a claim against someone else's insurer.
Stacking rules, coverage limits, and how your insurer is valuing the claim are all easier to get wrong than to get right on your own.
It is coverage on your own auto policy that pays when the driver who caused your injury has no liability insurance at all, including many hit-and-run and phantom vehicle situations. The claim is made against your own insurer rather than the at-fault driver's, up to the limits you purchased.
Uninsured (UM) coverage applies when the at-fault driver has no insurance. Underinsured (UIM) coverage applies when the at-fault driver has insurance, but the limits are too low to cover the injury. UIM makes up the difference, up to your own policy's limit, once the at-fault driver's coverage is exhausted.
Often, yes. Many Missouri policies treat an unidentified hit-and-run driver as uninsured for UM purposes, because there is no policy to pursue against a driver who cannot be identified. The exact terms depend on your policy, which is worth confirming before you assume you have no recovery.
Yes. Even though you are claiming against your own policy, the insurer's financial interest in paying less is the same as it would be in any injury claim. It can dispute the amount of your damages, how the crash happened, or how much fault you bore, so the claim needs to be documented as carefully as one against a stranger's insurer.
More than the state minimum, if you can afford it, because UM and UIM limits are usually the ceiling on what you can recover when the other driver cannot pay. Many drivers carry the same low limits on this coverage that the minimum-insured drivers around them carry on their liability policies, which defeats much of its purpose.
It is worth having one review the claim, particularly if there is any dispute about the amount of damages, whether multiple coverages on a household's policies can be combined, or how quickly the insurer is moving. The claim looks simpler because it is against your own company, but the incentives are not different.
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