When we talk to injured drivers in Colorado, one of the most frustrating situations we see is this: someone does everything right, carries insurance, drives responsibly, and still gets hit by a driver who either has no insurance at all or nowhere near enough coverage to pay for the harm they caused. That is where uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, usually called UM/UIM coverage, becomes critically important.
In Colorado, the numbers are not small. According to the Insurance Information Institute, Colorado had an estimated uninsured-driver rate of 19.7 percent in a recent year, ranking ninth in the nation. On the underinsured side, the Insurance Research Council reported that Colorado had the highest underinsured-driver rate in the country at 40.9 percent. Nationally, the uninsured rate was 15.4 percent, while the underinsured rate was 15.7 percent. Those figures help explain why UM/UIM coverage is not some obscure add-on. In Colorado, it is often one of the most important protections in an auto policy.
At Cook, Bradford & Levy, we represent people and families injured in traffic accidents across Boulder County and beyond. In cases involving uninsured and underinsured motorists, experience matters. So does direct communication with clients. So does a willingness to negotiate aggressively and litigate when necessary. That perspective matters when the insurer on the other side is, in a UM/UIM claim, often your own insurance company.