When Plaintiff was Involved in One Accident When Plaintiff Never Gained Control

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he two parties to an uninsured/underinsured litigation asked the Eleventh Circuit to define and apply the term “accident” as used in an automobile insurance policy to an auto accident where the plaintiff was struck by two different autos. In William Benjamin Danner, Jr., Mary Danner v. Travelers Property Casualty Insurance Company, No. 20-12553, United States Court Of Appeals For The Eleventh Circuit (March 18, 2021) the trial court found one accident and the plaintiffs appealed.

ZALMA OPINION

What this case teaches is that one should never try to save money by limiting the available underinsured motorist coverage. No one should carry less UM/UIM coverage than the liability coverage they find available for a third party the insured may injure. It is not the number of collisions that determine the number of accidents but the fact that there was an uninterrupted series of collisions with Danner’s vehicle disabled, out of control, when it was struck a second time all part of the same proximate event.