How Does Uninsured Motorist (“UM”) Coverage Work?
A plaintiff sought to establish uninsured motorist (“UM”) coverage from his insurance company in the amount of $1 million, which was the liability limit of the commercial auto policy at issue. The insurer countered that the UM policy limit is $100,000. On cross-motions, the parties moved for partial summary judgment, and the trial court granted partial summary judgment to the insurer and denied partial summary judgment to the plaintiff. The plaintiff appealed.
Background
A motorist was driving on Interstate 285 when she rear-ended the plaintiff’s car that was insured by under a policy issued to the plaintiff’s company. The plaintiff sustained injuries as a result of this crash that continued to persist. The plaintiff sued the other motorist, she tendered her policy limits, and the case proceeded against the insurer for UM benefits.
Prior to this accident, the plaintiff, on behalf of his company, applied to the insurer through an independent broker for a commercial auto policy. The insurer provided a quote, which indicated that it “could be modified or declined,” for a policy with a $1 million liability limit and a $100,000 UM limit. The insurer then emailed the plaintiff an application that had been pre-populated for a policy with a $1 million liability limit and a $100,000 UM limit. There was nowhere designated on the application for the plaintiff to identify a different amount of UM coverage.
At the end of the application was a section that read “UNINSURED AND UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGES (Check the appropriate box(es) below and sign where applicable[.]” It then provided options for the applicant to select by signature the UM limits included in the application or to reject UM bodily injury and/or property damage coverage. Notably, this portion of the application provided that this section was not to be used in Georgia; instead, a “SPECIFIC STATE SUPPLEMENT” was to be used. This section is unsigned.
The plaintiff contended that no state-specific supplement was attached to or contained in the application. The insurer pointed to a document that referenced the plaintiff’s company which the insurer claims was provided to the plaintiff titled “TRADITIONAL AND NEW UNINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE MANDATORY OFFER AND EXPLANATION[.]” This document describes UM coverage options: one that would be reduced by At-Fault Liability Limits (“Traditional Uninsured Motorist Coverage”) and another that would be added on to At-Fault Liability Limits (“New Uninsured Motorist Coverage”).
This document stated, “You have the right to purchase Traditional Uninsured Motorist Coverage or New Uninsured Motorist Coverage, if applicable, with limits up to the liability limits of your policy.” The document provided spaces to select by initials one of these types of UM coverage or to reject all UM coverage. This document had no initials or signatures.
The insurer issued a policy that indicates on its declarations page that it provided a $1 million liability limit and a $100,000 UM limit. The trial court granted the insurer’s motion for partial summary judgment, finding that the policy provided $100,000 in UM coverage, and denied the plaintiff’s cross-motion. The plaintiff appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in its finding that the UM policy limit was $100,000.
Court of Appeals Review of O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(a)
Judge Jeffrey A. Watkins started his opinion by acknowledging:
uninsured motorist statutes are remedial in nature and must be broadly construed to accomplish the legislative purpose. That “legislative purpose” is to require some provision for first-party insurance coverage to facilitate indemnification for injuries to a person who is legally entitled to recover damages from an uninsured motorist, and thereby to protect innocent victims from the negligence of irresponsible drivers. Travelers Home & Marine Ins. Co. v. Castellanos, 297 Ga. 174, 177-78(1) (773 SE2d 184) (2015) (citations and punctuation omitted).
Since 2001, “O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(a)(1) [has] … require[d] insurance policies issued in Georgia to contain provisions for UM coverage which at the option of the insured shall be (i) not less than $25,000 per person, or (ii) equal to the policy’s bodily injury liability insurance coverage, if higher than $25,000 per person.”
“This Code section was intended to make a policy’s liability limits the default provision for UM coverage, unless an insured affirmatively [chooses]. UM coverage in a lesser amount.”
While O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(a)(3) provides that an insured can reject all UM coverage in writing, subsection (a)(1) doesn’t define how an insured can “affirmatively choose” UM coverage in an amount lower than the liability policy limits. Judge Watkins explained that the statute contains no specific requirement that an insured’s affirmative election of a lesser amount of UM coverage must be made in writing. Nevertheless, the lack of a writing requirement does not absolve the insurer of its burden of showing that the insured did, in fact, make an affirmative choice of lesser coverage in support of its position that the term setting forth lesser coverage should be enforced instead of the statutory default coverage.
Judge Watkins quoted a 2013 decision that said, “when a vehicle insurance policy limits UM coverage to an amount less than the policy’s … liability limits without the insured having affirmatively chosen that lesser amount, the policy is not in compliance with O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(a)(1). In such an instance, the requirements of the statute control over the terms of the policy.”
The Court of Appeals concluded that the insurer didn’t meet its burden of establishing that the plaintiff made an affirmative choice, on behalf of the plaintiff’s company, for UM coverage in an amount less than the policy’s liability limits.
The quote and the application the insurer provided to the plaintiff’s company were pre-populated with a lower UM limit, and there was no obvious way for the insured to modify this amount on the application form. Even assuming the plaintiff’s company did receive the document the insurer identifies as the “state specific supplement,” the places for the insured to specifically initial and sign a UM coverage election were blank. While the plaintiff’s company’s broker testified that it was part of his “custom and practice” to explain UM coverage to a representative of the plaintiff’s company, he didn’t testify that the plaintiff or anyone on behalf of the plaintiff’s company affirmatively requested a lower UM limit in writing or otherwise.
The Court disagreed with the insurer’s argument that the plaintiff’s execution of the application on behalf of the plaintiff’s company was an act of affirmatively choosing lower UM limits. It is true that “an insured who can read is required to read the policy and is presumed to have understood its contents.” The General Assembly, however, has treated UM coverage different than other coverage types by requiring an affirmative choice of lower limits. Indeed, we have previously held that provision of a declarations page to an insured providing for lower UM limits “cannot [alone] support an inference that the [insured] made an affirmative choice among the various UM coverage options available under O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(a)(1), because it raises merely a conjecture or possibility of that fact.”
Before 2001, O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11 provided that “the insurer was not required to issue any coverage for any amount greater than the minimum coverage unless the insured requested in writing such higher limits.” In the Court’s search for the General Assembly’s intent, it noted that its amendment to the statute deleted this proviso, so that instead of requiring an affirmative request for policy limit UM coverage, now an insured must affirmatively choose UM coverage less than liability policy limits.
In light of the remedial nature of the statute, the Court of Appeals held that receipt of an insurance quote providing for lower UM limits selected by the insurer, execution of an application with pre-populated UM limit amounts with no disclaimer that the insured selected the UM coverage limits, and receipt of a policy demonstrating lower UM limit amounts didn’t meet an insurer’s burden of demonstrating an affirmative choice of lesser coverage. Again, the Court noted that the insurer contended it provided the plaintiff’s company with a form explaining and providing space for explicit election of a UM coverage option, but that form was unsigned. Moreover, that form made no reference to an election of lower UM limits.
Accordingly, the trial court erred in granting partial summary judgment to the insurer and in denying partial summary judgment to the plaintiff. Sullivan v. Trustgard Ins. Co., 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 176, 2026 LX 108054, 2026 WL 733149 (Ga. App. March 16, 2026).
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