Hit by an Uninsured Driver — What Now?

You did everything right, and the person who hit you has no insurance. It feels like a dead end — who pays now? Here is the part most people do not know until it happens to them: the answer is usually your own car insurance policy, through a coverage you may already be paying for without realizing it.

Being hit by an uninsured driver is frustrating, but it is not the catastrophe it first appears to be. You have more options than the situation suggests, and the steps you take in the first few days matter more than the other driver's empty pockets.

It is more common than you think

As of 2023, the Insurance Research Council estimated that about one in seven drivers — over 36 million people — carries no insurance at all. Roughly one in three drivers is either uninsured or underinsured. The rate swings hard by state, from under 6 percent in Maine to more than 28 percent in Mississippi. If a driver with no policy hit you, you are in very large company, and the insurance system has a built-in answer for exactly this.

The coverage that saves you: UM and UIM

Two add-ons to your own auto policy are built for this moment.

• Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage pays for your injuries — and in many states your vehicle damage — when the at-fault driver has no insurance. It also typically covers hit-and-run crashes, where the driver who caused the wreck is never identified.
• Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage kicks in when the other driver does have insurance, but not enough. If their $25,000 policy limit cannot cover a $90,000 injury, your UIM coverage can fill part of the gap.

About three-quarters of U.S. drivers carry some form of this coverage, so there is a good chance it is already on your policy — check the declarations page, or call your agent and ask specifically about “UM/UIM bodily injury” limits. It is also one of the cheapest things on a policy, which is why we generally suggest people carry meaningful limits of it.

What to do, in order

1. Document the scene and call the police. Photos, the other driver's name and plate, and an official report matter even more than usual here — for a hit-and-run, the report is often what unlocks your UM coverage. This is the same groundwork any crash calls for; our guide on car-accident claims walks through it.
2. Get checked out medically, and keep going. Gaps in treatment hurt a UM claim exactly the way they hurt any other one. Consistent care is what turns an injury into a documented injury.
3. Notify your own insurer promptly. UM/UIM policies carry notice deadlines — sometimes tight ones — and missing them can forfeit the coverage. Report the crash, but keep it factual.
4. Be careful with the recorded statement. Your insurer may ask for one. The adjuster's questions are designed to produce quotable soundbites that shrink your claim; the same cautions in our piece on talking to insurance adjusters apply when the adjuster works for you.
5. Mind the clock. The deadline to sue still runs in the background. Check your state's statute of limitations, and note that UM claims sometimes carry their own, separate contractual deadline buried in the policy.

What if you do not have UM coverage?

You still have a few avenues, though none is as clean as your own coverage. Medical-payments (MedPay) or personal-injury-protection (PIP) coverage, if you carry it, pays medical bills regardless of fault. In rare cases the at-fault driver has personal assets worth pursuing — but a driver without insurance usually has little to collect, which is why suing them directly is often a hollow victory. And depending on the facts, a third party may share blame: an employer if the driver was working, or a bar under some states' dram-shop laws if the driver was over-served.

What your claim is worth

A UM/UIM injury claim is valued the same way any injury claim is — medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering — just paid by a different policy. If you want to sketch a realistic range before you talk to anyone, our breakdown of what a case is worth uses the same mental model the adjuster will, and the case value estimator turns it into numbers.

Being hit by an uninsured driver narrows who pays, not whether you can recover. The coverage exists for this. The work is in documenting the injury and not letting your own insurer talk you into less than the claim is worth.