Lowell Personal Injury Law Blog

If you're in a car accident, mandatory coverage might not be enough to cover you. Optional Bodily Injury coverage in Part 5 is what fills in some of those gaps. It will apply to you, a your household member, or anyone driving your car with your consent. Unlike Part 1 coverage, it will apply for injuries to guest occupants and for accidents outside of Massachusetts. Important to know, here is what your insurance company won't cover:

1. injuries to employees of the person using the vehicle who are injured in the course of employment;
2. injuries resulting from an accident where a household member (other than your spouse) is using a car which you or any household member owns or uses regularly, but for which a premium has not been paid;
3. injuries resulting from an accident while you or your spouse are in a vehicle you own or use regularly, unless a premium is paid;
4. if the vehicle is being used by anyone while in the business of selling, servicing, or parking autos;
5. injuries that occur while anyone is using the vehicle in the course of any business other than those listed in #4. (this has exceptions, namely for passenger cars).

WARNING: Note that the difference between exclusions 2 and 3 was designed to protect parents who might do a rare errand with a child's car, allowing the parent to keep their assumedly higher Part 5 coverage. Some insurers have stripped away that protection. Similarly, some insurers have changed the exception to the exclusion on business use of your car. Don't be fooled by lower premiums which really only reflect lesser protection. Massachusetts is moving away from the standard policy, meaning it's more likely that you need help in choosing your coverage.

Also, if a car accident occurs in another state with different insurance requirements, your part 5 coverage, if lower than the required coverage, will automatically mirror the higher coverage. Other than that, the Optional Coverage you choose will apply as does Part 1 coverage. So, 20/40 coverage means a limit of $20,000 per person, and $40,000 per accident.

Part 5 coverage, while optional, is a necessary part of your insurance policy. There are so many gaps in Part 1, Part 5 will help protect you from the unthinkable. It's also important to remember that if you want to protect yourself with higher coverage should you be the victim of an accident caused by someone with no insurance or not enough insurance, you need to have at least the same amount of Part 5 Coverage. If you have any questions, either call your insurance agent, or feel free to contact us at Marcotte Law Firm.

Most of the time, getting hurt in an automobile accident seems like the worst case scenario. Adding salt to the wound would be telling the injured person that the driver or car that hit you didn't have insurance. Now what? If you have Massachusetts automobile insurance, your policy will cover certain bodily injuries caused by an uninsured automobile. In this blog post, we'll talk about what is covered, who is covered, and the manner in which your company will pay you.

First, there are three situations in which Uninsured Coverage will apply:

1. The legally responsible party who caused the collision does not have automobile insurance;
2. The legally responsible party who caused the collision leaves the scene of the accident without giving any (or enough) information;
3. The company that insured the legally responsible party who caused the collision becomes insolvent and cannot pay you.

Simply, if someone else is legally responsible for an accident, causes bodily injury to you, and either leaves the scene or does not have insurance, your company will pay for your injuries under this type of coverage.

Next, there are four classes of people who will be able to recover:

1. The insured person will be able to recover, whether in his/her own car, in another's car, or as a pedestrian;
2. Any of your "household members," defined as someone who lives with you who is related by blood, marriage, or adoption, including step-children or foster children;
3. Anyone who is in your car who doesn't have his/her own automobile insurance policy, or who isn't a household member of someone with a policy;
4. Anyone else for damages he or she is entitled to recover because of injury to a person covered under this part.

So, you, your family, and those in your car will be eligible to receive benefits should you or they need them, even if the person who injured you got away.

Finally, we have some of the technicalities:

1. There is an arbitration clause in this part, meaning any dispute will not be able to heard in court; it will have to go to arbitration;
2. The limits to recover are the same 20/40 limits that was addressed in our blog post talking about compulsory insurance, except that you can (and should) buy higher optional limits;
3. Your company won't pay if you're using your car as a taxi, if someone is using your car without your consent, or the driver is street racing;
4. There may be more than one insurance policy that has potential applicability to your accident. The order of applicability is counter-intuitive and unique to this type of coverage. You must give notice of the claim to the proper insurer, and there is a good chance you will pick the wrong one.

In sum, the moral of this story is that if you think you shouldn't consult a lawyer if you're in an automobile accident with an uninsured vehicle, you are mistaken. The lawyers at Marcotte Law Firm have successfully handled cases against uninsured vehicles and motorists, getting injured parties the benefits they deserve. Call us for your free consultation before it's too late.

When you purchase automobile insurance in Massachusetts, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is the thought of bills piling up after an accident. If an automobile accident is your fault, and you injure another person, you might think that your insurance will cover you no matter what. Unfortunately, that might not be the case if you only purchased Compulsory Bodily Injury Insurance. In this post, we will look into the Compulsory Bodily Injury Part of Massachusetts Automobile Insurance, otherwise known as "Part 1" of the Insurance Policy, and see what (and who) is and is not covered.

Welcome to the Personal Injury Blog of Marcotte Law Firm. We are attorneys in Lowell, Massachusetts focusing on Personal Injury law. However, we handle many other issues that arise, including Social Security Disability, Criminal Law, Family Law, Land Issues, General Litigation, and Estate Planning. We've been located in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts since 1958, providing superior legal representation to residents of Greater Lowell, the Merrimack Valley, and across Massachusetts for over fifty years.

We've started this Personal Injury blog to try to address the topics that we think our clients and potential clients would be most interested in. Specifically, when someone gets hurt, whether it be in an automobile accident, on the job site, or while shopping at a local store, there are a lot of issues that arise. These are things that most people have never thought about before. Who will pay my medical bills? Why is the insurance company calling me all the time? If I talk to the insurance company, am I putting myself at risk? With this Personal Injury blog, we are going to try to answer as many of these questions as we can. Then, you can make the decision regarding whether or not you contact a lawyer in a more educated way.

If you are reading this and have a question, feel free to ask. If it's something that we can address, we'd be happy to do that. Otherwise, we hope that you enjoy reading our blog, refer it to your friends, and add your comments whenever you can.