Trucking is a dangerous occupation. A lot of my work as a trucking safety trial attorney in Georgia involves representing injured truck drivers and survivors of truckers who are killed due to someone else’s carelessness.

An often overlooked factor is that a lot of trucking insurance policies include substantial uninsured motorist (UM) insurance coverage.

That means that if a truck driver is killed or seriously injured due to negligence of a motorist who has only $25,000 coverage, the truck’s UM coverage is available for damages above $25,000 up to the limits of the policy.

Today I received an insurance policy in a case where I represent the folks  who were hit by an inattentive truck driver.  The policy includes $1,000,000 UM coverage.  If the roles had been reserved, the truck driver or his survivors would have been able to collect up to the $1,000,000 UM coverage.

 

 

Ken Shigley is a trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia who has been listed as a "Super Lawyer" (Atlanta Magazine), among the "Legal Elite" (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale), and is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy,. Mr. Shigley has extensive experience representing parties in trucking and bus accidents, products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, brain injury, spinal cord injury and burn injury cases.  Currently he is Secretary of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia.