The Oklahoma Legislature is reporting a bill that would have barred policyholders from “stacking” uninsured and uninsured (UM/UIM) motorist policies has failed to make its way out of the Senate Retirement and Insurance Committee. Stacking is a maneuver that multi-vehicle policyholders can use when they have exhausted the limits on their UM/UIM coverage for one car.
This is how stacking works: When the limits have been reached for one car, coverage for another car on the same policy can be transferred to cover damages in excess of the limit. This means that a three-car policy in which each car has up to $100,000 in UM coverage would in effect actually have $300,000 available to pay for one UM claim. Policyholders can stack coverage for UM/UIM
auto insurance in Georgia and 28 other states, according to a 2009 report by the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).
According to the Insurance Information Institute, whether or not a state allows stacking can influence the price of UM/UIM policies. The PCI analysis indicated that states that do allow stacking had an average UM/UIM claim severity that was about 48 percent higher than the states that did not allow stacking, and that average UM/UIM policies were consequently about 37 percent higher in states that permit stacking.
The Oklahoma House passed the bill in March by a 67-19 vote, but it received an unfavorable committee vote Thursday.
To learn more about this and other car insurance issues, readers can go to
http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/georgia/ where visitors will have access to a whole library of informative resource pages and a quote-comparison generator that can be used to help track down the best rates for a policy.
