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You carry liability insurance so that the people you hit are protected. Uninsured motorist coverage exists for the opposite situation: someone hits you and has no insurance, or not enough of it. It is one of the least understood coverages on a standard auto policy, and one of the easiest to undervalue until the day you need it. Given how many drivers are on the road without insurance, that day is less unlikely than most people assume.
How many uninsured drivers are actually out there
The Insurance Research Council, the industry’s main research body on this question, estimates that about one in seven American drivers is uninsured. Its most recent figures put the national uninsured rate around 14 to 15 percent, and it has been climbing as premiums squeeze household budgets. The state breakdown is stark: Mississippi leads the nation with roughly 29 percent of drivers uninsured, followed by New Mexico at about 22 percent, Florida at about 20 percent, and Tennessee and Michigan near 20 percent. At the other end, New Jersey sits around 3 percent.
Underinsurance is the quieter half of the problem. The IRC found that about one in three drivers is either uninsured or underinsured, meaning they carry insurance but with limits too low to cover a serious crash. A driver can be fully legal under your state’s minimum liability law and still carry limits that would not cover a single night in a trauma center. If you want the mechanics of how this coverage works, our explainer on uninsured motorist coverage covers the details.
What uninsured motorist coverage pays for
Uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage pays for your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering when an uninsured driver hits you. Think of it as the liability insurance the other driver should have carried, paid by your own policy instead. Underinsured motorist coverage fills the gap when the at-fault driver’s limits run out: their policy pays first up to its limits, and your underinsured coverage pays the remainder up to your limits.
Uninsured motorist property damage coverage, available in some states, pays for damage to your car. Hit-and-run accidents are typically treated as uninsured motorist claims, which matters because a driver who flees the scene is effectively uninsured as far as your recovery goes. Without this coverage, your options after a hit-and-run are your collision coverage for the car and your health insurance for your body, both of which come with their own deductibles and limits.
Why your other coverage is not a substitute
People often assume health insurance makes uninsured motorist coverage redundant. It does not. Health insurance covers medical bills, but not lost wages, and not pain and suffering. It comes with deductibles, copays, and network restrictions. Uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage is broader, and it is the only coverage that puts you in the position you would have been in if the at-fault driver had been properly insured.
Collision coverage repairs your car regardless of who caused the crash, but it does nothing for injuries and it carries a deductible. Liability coverage protects other people from you, not you from them. Each coverage on your policy answers a different question, and the question uninsured motorist coverage answers, who pays for my injuries when the at-fault driver cannot, has no other good answer.
How the limits and stacking work
Uninsured motorist coverage is sold with split limits like your liability coverage, written as two numbers such as 100/300: up to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. Many insurers default your uninsured motorist limits to match your liability limits, and you can usually lower them or, in some states, reject the coverage in writing. Lowering them saves a little premium and gives up a lot of protection, which is why matching is the standard recommendation.
In about half the states, you can also stack the coverage across multiple vehicles on the same policy. Stacking multiplies your uninsured motorist limits by the number of cars insured, so 100/300 on two cars becomes 200/600 of available protection. Stacked coverage costs more than unstacked, but for multi-car households it is one of the cheaper ways to buy a large increase in protection. Ask your insurer whether your state allows stacking and what the price difference is. It is a short conversation that can double your coverage.
Do you actually need it
In about twenty states plus Washington DC, the answer is decided for you: some form of uninsured motorist coverage is mandatory. Everywhere else it is optional, which is where the real decision lives. The case for carrying it is strongest if you live in a high-uninsured state, if you drive a lot of miles in areas where minimum-limits policies are common, or if your health insurance has a high deductible that would make an injury expensive even before lost wages.
The cost argument favors carrying it. Uninsured motorist coverage is usually one of the cheaper line items on a policy relative to the protection it provides, because the claims are infrequent even though they can be large. Matching your uninsured motorist limits to your liability limits is the standard advice, and it is sound: there is little logic in protecting strangers up to $100,000 while protecting yourself up to $25,000.
The honest answer to whether you need it is that you need it exactly as much as you need the other driver to be insured, and you have no control over that. Roughly one in seven of them is not. For the price of one of the smaller line items on your policy, you buy protection against all of them. Check what the coverage costs on your own policy before deciding it is expendable, and compare it against what a good price for car insurance looks like overall. Most drivers who run the numbers keep the coverage.
