Hit and Run Lawyers in Pennsylvania: Your Own Policy Is the Claim

Your insurer becomes the other side

This is the part that unsettles people. In an uninsured motorist claim you are claiming against your own carrier, and while they owe you a duty of good faith, they are also the party paying. They will evaluate your injuries, question your treatment and make an offer the same way any other insurer would.

It remains your policy and your right, and Pennsylvania bad faith law applies if they handle it unreasonably. But it is not a formality, and being unrepresented in a UM claim is not materially different from being unrepresented against a stranger’s insurer.

Report promptly, and get the report number

Uninsured motorist claims for phantom or fleeing drivers typically require prompt notice to the police and to the insurer. Delay is the most common reason these claims are contested.

Report even if you did not get a plate. Especially then, because the police report is what establishes that the crash happened as you describe it.

Finding the driver is often possible

People assume a fled driver is gone. Frequently they are not:

• Vehicle debris. A broken mirror housing, trim, or headlamp fragment carries part numbers that identify make, model and often model year.
• Paint transfer on your vehicle.
• Nearby video, from businesses, doorbell cameras and transit vehicles, most of which overwrites within weeks.
• Body shops. A vehicle with that damage pattern has to be repaired somewhere.

Photograph debris where it lies before the road is cleared, and do not have your own vehicle repaired before the paint transfer is documented.

Stacking, and how much coverage you really have

If your household has more than one vehicle on a policy, stacked uninsured motorist coverage can multiply the limit available, unless somebody signed a waiver rejecting stacking. Those waivers are common and they are also frequently defective, which is a genuine argument rather than a technicality.

Send us every declarations page in the household. It is normal for the available coverage to turn out considerably larger than people believed.

Phantom vehicles that never touched you

Where a driver runs you off the road without contact, Pennsylvania generally requires independent corroboration rather than your account alone. A witness, video, or physical evidence at the scene. This is a real limitation and it is another reason to look for cameras in the first days.