Someone ran a light on Loop 410, wrecked your car, put you in an emergency room, and then handed the officer a lapsed insurance card. Everything about that feels like it should be someone else’s problem to solve. The San Antonio uninsured motorist accident lawyer team at George Salinas Injury Lawyers takes it over, including the part nobody warns you about: your claim is now against your own insurance company.
That shift catches people off guard. The company you have paid for years is the one that will question your treatment, your wage loss, and whether the other driver was really at fault. It is a different fight than a normal crash claim, and it runs by different rules.
Call (210) 225-0909 for a free case review. No fee unless we win.
Resources On This Page
- What Is Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage?
- Do You Already Have UM and UIM Coverage on Your Policy?
- How Common Are Uninsured Drivers in Texas?
- Why Does Your Own Insurance Company Fight a UIM Claim?
- Why Won’t My Insurer Just Pay My UIM Claim?
- What About a Hit-and-Run Driver Who Was Never Found?
- What Can You Recover Through a UM or UIM Claim?
- How Long Do You Have to Bring a UM or UIM Claim in Texas?
- What Should You Do After a Crash With an Uninsured Driver?
- San Antonio Uninsured Motorist Questions, Answered
- Your Policy Was Supposed to Be for Exactly This
What Is Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage?
It is the part of your own auto policy that pays when the at-fault driver cannot. Two situations trigger it.
Uninsured motorist (UM) applies when the other driver had no liability insurance at all, or when a hit-and-run driver is never identified.
Underinsured motorist (UIM) applies when the other driver had coverage, but not enough. This is the more common problem in San Antonio, and most people do not realize it until the numbers land.
Texas requires drivers to carry only $30,000 per person, $60,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage under Texas Transportation Code Section 601.072. Thirty thousand dollars is a helicopter ride and part of one night in a trauma unit. A cervical fusion, three months of missed work, and physical therapy will pass that limit before you finish treatment.
Do You Already Have UM and UIM Coverage on Your Policy?
Probably, unless you signed it away in writing. Texas requires insurers to include UM and UIM coverage in every auto policy unless a named insured rejects it in writing, under Texas Insurance Code Section 1952.101.
So the first thing to do after a crash with an uninsured driver is pull your declarations page and look for a UM/UIM line. Check every policy in the household, not just the one on the car you were driving. Depending on the policy language, coverage may reach you as a resident relative, as a passenger in someone else’s car, or even as a pedestrian.
Do not take an adjuster’s word for what your own policy covers. Read the declarations page, and have someone who reads these for a living read it with you.
How Common Are Uninsured Drivers in Texas?
Common enough that this coverage is not a theoretical purchase. The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles reported through its TexasSure verification program that roughly 11.87% of Texas drivers were uninsured as of September 2025, which works out to about one in every eight vehicles on the road.
Underinsured drivers are a larger group and harder to count, because a driver at the state minimum is fully legal and still nowhere near able to cover a serious injury. Nationally, the Insurance Research Council has estimated that about one in three drivers is either uninsured or carrying limits below what a serious claim requires.
In a county that recorded 48,522 crashes and 215 traffic deaths in 2024 according to TxDOT crash data, those percentages stop being abstract quickly.
Why Does Your Own Insurance Company Fight a UIM Claim?
Because the moment you make one, its financial interest runs opposite to yours. Every dollar it pays you comes out of the company, not out of a stranger’s policy. The friendly relationship you had while paying premiums does not survive the claim.
What that looks like in practice:
- A recorded statement request in the first week, before you know the full extent of your injuries
- A demand for years of prior medical records, looking for anything degenerative to blame
- An argument that your treatment was excessive or unrelated to the crash
- A fault theory that assigns you a share of blame, since Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001 reduces your recovery by your percentage of responsibility and bars it entirely above 50%
- Silence, which costs the company nothing and costs you everything
None of this is personal. It is process. Understanding how Texas fault rules affect your claim is the first step toward not being moved by it.
Before you give a recorded statement to your own insurer, call (210) 225-0909.
Why Won’t My Insurer Just Pay My UIM Claim?
Because under Texas law it does not owe you anything until you prove two things: that the other driver was legally at fault, and that the other driver’s coverage was not enough.
The Texas Supreme Court set this out in Brainard v. Trinity Universal Insurance Company in 2006. A demand letter, on its own, does not trigger the insurer’s duty to pay. The insurer is not in breach for declining a pre-judgment demand, and it does not owe attorney fees simply for saying no.
Practically, that means most contested UIM claims have to go into litigation to move at all. In 2021, in Allstate Insurance Company v. Irwin, the court added a second path, allowing an insured to establish the carrier’s liability through a declaratory judgment action with attorney fees available at the court’s discretion.
Neither route is something to attempt without a lawyer. Both are ordinary work for one.
What About a Hit-and-Run Driver Who Was Never Found?
That is a UM claim, and Texas adds one requirement most people do not expect. Under Texas Insurance Code Section 1952.104, a claim involving an unknown driver generally requires actual physical contact between the vehicles.
The driver who ran you off the road without touching your car creates a much harder claim than the one who struck you and fled. Evidence matters enormously here: paint transfer, debris, nearby business camera footage, a witness who caught a partial plate.
If a driver fled the scene, get the police report started immediately and preserve everything. We handle hit-and-run accident claims alongside UM claims because in practice they are usually the same case.
What Can You Recover Through a UM or UIM Claim?
The same categories you could recover from the at-fault driver, capped by your own policy limits rather than theirs.
Economic damages. Emergency treatment, imaging, surgery, therapy, medication, assistive equipment, projected future medical care, lost wages, and lost earning capacity if the injury changes what work you can do.
Non-economic damages. Physical pain and mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement, both to date and going forward.
Two policy details decide how far that goes. First, whether your policy allows stacking across multiple vehicles or multiple household policies, which can substantially raise the ceiling. Second, whether personal injury protection (PIP) is on the policy, since PIP pays early medical bills and a portion of lost wages regardless of fault and does not have to be repaid from the UIM recovery.
Reading those provisions correctly is not a formality. It frequently changes the available number by six figures.
How Long Do You Have to Bring a UM or UIM Claim in Texas?
Two years for the underlying injury claim under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003, and often a separate, shorter deadline written into your own policy for notifying the insurer.
Most auto policies require prompt notice of a crash and prompt notice of any UM or UIM claim, and some contain their own contractual limitations period. Late notice is a defense insurers raise, and it is entirely avoidable.
Report the crash to your carrier promptly. Report it as a claim, not as a question. Then get advice before the conversation goes further.
What Should You Do After a Crash With an Uninsured Driver?
Move quickly on the things that expire, and slowly on the things that bind you.
Do these now:
- Get medical care the same day, and follow through on referrals without gaps
- Report the crash to your own insurance company promptly
- Get the crash report number from the responding San Antonio Police Department officer
- Photograph both vehicles, the scene, and any visible injuries
- Collect names and numbers from every witness before they leave
- Locate your declarations page and check for UM and UIM coverage
Wait on these:
- Giving a recorded statement
- Signing a broad medical authorization
- Accepting any settlement, including a small property damage payment tied to a release
- Posting anything about the crash or your recovery online
Our San Antonio car accident lawyers handle the notice, the statement, and the documentation so you are not deciding these things on painkillers three days after a wreck.
San Antonio Uninsured Motorist Questions, Answered
Will my rates go up if I make a UM or UIM claim?
Texas insurers are generally not permitted to surcharge you for a claim where you were not at fault, and a UM/UIM claim by definition involves another driver’s fault. That said, read your renewal carefully and ask your agent directly. Fear of a rate increase should not stop you from using coverage you paid for.
The other driver had insurance, but the company denied the claim. Is that a UM claim?
It can be. Coverage denied for non-payment of premium, for an excluded driver, or for a policy that lapsed before the crash can put the other driver in the uninsured category. That determination requires seeing the actual policy status, not the card in the glove box.
Can I collect from the at-fault driver personally if they have no insurance?
You can sue them, and you may obtain a judgment. Collecting on it is a separate question and often an unproductive one. UM coverage exists precisely because a judgment against someone without assets does not pay for surgery.
What if I was a passenger in someone else’s car?
You may have several sources of coverage at once: the at-fault driver’s policy, the UM/UIM coverage on the car you were riding in, and the UM/UIM coverage on your own household policy. The order in which those apply depends on the policy language, and it is worth having reviewed rather than guessed at.
Does UM coverage apply if I was hit while walking or on a bicycle?
Frequently, yes. Many policies extend UM and UIM protection to a named insured and resident relatives as pedestrians. This is one of the most commonly missed sources of recovery after a pedestrian or cyclist crash.
Meet Our Top-Rated San Antonio Uninsured Motorist Attorneys
Your Policy Was Supposed to Be for Exactly This
You bought this coverage for a day you hoped would never come. Now the company that sold it to you is asking for your medical history and taking its time. That is the moment most people realize a policy is a contract, and a contract has to be enforced.
George Salinas began his career representing insurance companies before he began suing them. He knows how a UIM file gets built, valued, and slow-walked, because he once worked on the other side of it. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, which requires a real record of jury trials, and every case here is prepared for a Bexar County jury from the start.
The consultation is free, there is no fee unless we win, and we can tell you in one conversation whether your own policy is being read the way it should be. Call George Salinas Injury Lawyers at (210) 225-0909 in San Antonio or (512) 851-1004 in Austin.