Car & vehicle insurance
Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover
This is the cover that pays when the driver who hit you has none, too little, or did not stop. It is mandatory in New York at a level that has not kept up with anything, and topping it up costs less than most people pay for roadside assistance.
Every New York policy carries uninsured motorist cover at 25/50 and you cannot waive it. It responds when you are injured by a driver with no insurance at all, or by one who drove away and was never identified. That is genuinely valuable and it is also where most people's understanding stops.
The more useful product sits beside it. Supplementary underinsured motorist — SUM — responds when the other driver had insurance but nowhere near enough, which in this borough is far more common than meeting someone with none. It is optional, it is cheap, and it is the coverage most Queens households are quietly short of.
Why the mandatory layer is not enough
The mandatory 25/50 uninsured motorist limit is the same figure as the minimum liability limit, and it was set in a different era of medical costs. If an uninsured driver injures you seriously, $25,000 is what your own policy brings to a loss that will cost multiples of it.
Worse, uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist are different triggers. UM needs the other driver to have nothing. If they had a minimum-limits policy and your injuries are worth six figures, UM does not respond at all — you need SUM, and if you did not buy SUM you are looking at the difference yourself.
How SUM actually works, including the trap
SUM pays the gap between what the at-fault driver's policy pays and your own SUM limit, up to your limit. If you carry $100,000 of SUM and the other driver had $25,000, the most your SUM adds is $75,000. It does not stack on top of their full limit; it tops your recovery up to your number.
Which produces the trap: SUM limits above your own liability limits are generally not available, so the only way to raise your SUM is to raise your liability first. That is not a sales tactic, it is how the coverage is constructed, and it is the honest reason we push liability limits before we push anything else.
What it costs, and why that number is strange
Raising SUM from the minimum to match liability limits of 100/300 typically costs somewhere between $40 and $220 a year in this area. Set against the size of the loss it responds to, it is the best value on a New York motor policy by a wide margin.
It is cheap for an uncomfortable reason: it only pays when somebody else has already failed to carry enough, and the insurer has an at-fault carrier to pursue afterwards. That does not make it less worth buying. It makes it one of the few places in insurance where the price genuinely understates the value.
Hit-and-run, and what you must do
An unidentified driver is treated as uninsured, so your UM responds — but there are conditions, and the important one is prompt reporting. Report a hit-and-run to the police and to your carrier as soon as you reasonably can. A late report on an unwitnessed hit-and-run is the most defensible denial a carrier ever writes.
If your car was struck while parked and nobody left details, that is a comprehensive or collision question rather than a UM one in most cases, because UM in New York is about bodily injury. It is a distinction worth ringing about rather than assuming either way.
Ask about limits, not about “full coverage”. Full coverage is a phrase, not a product, and no policy on earth is sold under that name. It usually means liability plus comprehensive plus collision, which is three of the seven things a New York motor policy can carry, and it says nothing whatever about your limits. A minimum-limits policy with comprehensive and collision on it satisfies that phrase completely and will not survive a serious injury claim. We quote limits and deductibles by their numbers, and we would rather have the conversation about what 25/50/10 actually pays for than let a slogan stand in for it.
Included as standard
How we handle this line
SUM quoted on every motor policy
Priced beside your liability options every time, whether or not you asked, because the two have to move together.
The stacking explained honestly
We show what SUM adds against a minimum-limits at-fault driver, not the headline limit, so the number you see is the number you would recover.
Liability raised first where needed
Because SUM cannot exceed your liability. We say that plainly rather than quoting a SUM limit you cannot actually buy.
Hit-and-run reporting explained
What to report, to whom, and how fast — before you need it, not while you are standing in the street.
Household vehicles matched
Mismatched SUM limits across two cars in one household create gaps nobody notices until a claim. We check all of them together.
No fee for any of it
Quoting, comparing, and re-running it at renewal. We are paid by the carrier if you buy and by nobody if you do not.
When to ring us
Signs this is worth a conversation
- Your SUM limit is 25/50 and your liability is higher — a mismatch worth a five-minute fix.
- You have two cars on different policies with different SUM limits.
- You were injured by a driver whose insurer has offered their policy limit and it is not enough.
- You have been hit by an unidentified driver and have not reported it to your own carrier.
- You have never been told what SUM is, despite having bought motor insurance for years.
Uninsured motorist — what it typically costs
- Annual cost of raising supplementary underinsured motorist limits to match your liability. The 25/50 mandatory layer is already in the premium above.$40 – $220
This is a typical premium range for this area. It is not a quote, and it is not our price. We do not set premiums: a carrier files its rates with the Department of Financial Services and our commission is already inside the filed rate, so the same policy from the same carrier costs the same through any producer in New York. What genuinely moves your own number is which carrier writes it, the limits and deductibles you choose, and the facts on your record — which is what we would go through with you before anything is quoted.
Questions we are actually asked
Uninsured motorist — frequently asked
Is uninsured motorist coverage required in New York?
Yes, at 25/50 per person and per accident, and it cannot be waived. What is optional is supplementary underinsured motorist cover, which is the part that responds when the other driver was insured but underinsured — and which is the part most people actually need.
What is the difference between UM and SUM?
UM responds when the at-fault driver had no insurance or was never identified. SUM responds when they had insurance that was not enough. They are different triggers, and carrying only the mandatory UM leaves the far more common situation uncovered.
How much SUM should I carry?
As a rule, match it to your liability limits — the logic being that you should be at least as well protected from a badly insured stranger as that stranger is protected from you. Since SUM cannot generally exceed your liability, raising both together is the only way to move it.
Does SUM cover damage to my car?
No. SUM in New York is bodily injury cover. Damage to your own vehicle from an uninsured driver is a collision claim, subject to your collision deductible, which is a different part of the policy and sometimes a different decision.
Related cover
Usually considered alongside this
Car insurance
The whole New York motor policy explained by its seven parts — and what each one actually pays for when somebody hits you on Roosevelt Avenue.
$2,400 – $6,200
No-fault & PIP
New York pays your medical bills through your own policy regardless of fault — and gives you thirty days to file the form that starts it.
Included
Umbrella insurance
A million dollars of liability sitting above the policies you already have, for roughly the price of a month of car insurance.
$250 – $600
Policy review
An hour with your actual declarations pages, looking for the three gaps that open quietly between renewals.
No chargeBring the declarations page and we will read it with you
Ask us what it would cost
Send or bring the summary pages of what you already have — those two sheets are where most of the useful conversation is. We will tell you what we would place it with and what that would cost, what we are paid for doing it, and whether you should move at all. Quite often the answer is that your current policy is priced fairly and you should keep it, and that is an answer we give in writing like any other.