Everyone who wants to make use of their driving privileges in Connecticut is required to follow certain rules. They need a license and must register their vehicles. Vehicle registration generally requires proof of insurance. Anytime a police officer pulls someone over, they will ask to see proof of insurance as a result. Drivers also need to provide their insurance coverage information to the other parties involved in a crash, should one occur.
People sometimes take for granted that everyone abides by these rules. Simply having a paper from an insurance company is not a guarantee of appropriate coverage. A small but significant number of drivers let their insurance coverage lapse. They fail to make payments each month, and the insurance company stops their protection.
Some people leave a car crash thinking they will receive compensation for property damage and injuries, only to later learn that the coverage of the other driver is not current. What happens after a crash caused by someone with a lapsed insurance policy?
Drivers may need to go to court
It is easy for those living paycheck-to-paycheck to think of insurance as a burden rather than a key form of personal protection. They may need to spend hundreds of dollars for theoretical coverage that they never actually use.
For those making difficult decisions about what bills to pay when they don’t have enough money to balance their budgets, skipping an insurance payment may seem like a totally reasonable choice when compared with letting their children go without groceries or having the utilities turned off at their homes. Those people will often continue to drive despite knowing they don’t have coverage.
According to data provided by the Insurance Information Institute based on claims records from 2019, over 6% of drivers in Connecticut may not have active policies. If one of those drivers causes a crash, the other people involved in the wreck won’t be able to use basic liability coverage the way that they probably expect they can.
Some people can turn to uninsured driver coverage on their own policies if they have invested in extra protection. However, many people must take the at-fault driver to court to recover their losses when someone without insurance causes a collision.
The unfortunate truth is that uninsured drivers don’t just gamble with their own financial future. They may create hardship and stress for many other people. Holding an uninsured motorist accountable by taking them to civil court is a reasonable response from those injured in a crash caused by another’s negligence.
