Uninsured drivers

What Texas requires, and what it does not pay

TDI says drivers must be able to show they can pay for crashes they cause. The minimum liability amounts, in TDI’s guide, in DPS’s financial-responsibility page, and in Transportation Code § 601.072, are $30,000 for bodily injury or death of one person in one crash, $60,000 for bodily injury or death of two or more people in one crash, and $25,000 for property damage. TDI is explicit that this liability coverage pays the other person. It does not repair your car, and it does not pay your medical bills when the other driver was at fault and uninsured.

Driving without the required financial responsibility can be its own legal problem. This page does not restate the penalty range for that offense, because the penalty statute was not the section re-read for this edition. Do not treat silence as “there is no consequence.”

The coverages TDI points to

TDI says insurers must offer uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage and that you have it unless you rejected it in writing. TDI describes that coverage as paying when you are hit by someone with no insurance or not enough insurance to pay your medical bills and car repairs. TDI’s hit-and-run article adds that UM/UIM property-damage coverage can pay for car repairs after a hit-and-run, often with a lower deductible than collision, and that it may pay for a rental. Collision coverage is the other coverage TDI names for repairing your own car, subject to the deductible in the policy.

Personal injury protection, which TDI says is on a Texas auto policy unless rejected in writing, pays medical costs and some lost wages regardless of fault, within the policy limit. Medical-payments coverage, if you bought it, is a different and narrower medical benefit in TDI’s description. This guide does not print a PIP dollar limit. The declarations page has the one that applies to the policy.

Practical steps that are not a claim decision

• Tell your own insurer, even if you also talk to another company. TDI’s claim steps say to do that.
• Write down exactly what the other driver showed you, or that they showed you nothing.
• If an officer came, ask for the incident number and the agency name.
• Ask your company, in writing if you can, which coverages are in force and what deductible applies.
• Call TDI at 800-252-3439 on weekdays if the company will not answer basic questions about the claim process.

If the other driver left, use the hit-and-run page for the scene steps and the criminal statutes. Lack of insurance and leaving the scene are not the same event, even though both can lead you to ask about UM/UIM coverage.