PERSONAL AUTO POLICY · 5 MIN READ

Medical Payments and Uninsured Motorists Coverage

Part B Medical Payments is first-party, no-fault coverage: it pays reasonable expenses for necessary medical and funeral services caused by an auto accident, regardless of who was at fault. Insureds under Part B are the named insured and family members injured in any auto (or as pedestrians struck by one), plus any other person injured while occupying a covered auto. Typical per-person limits run from $1,000 to $10,000, and services must be incurred within 3 years of the accident. Part B does not pay lost wages or pain and suffering — those are tort damages, or PIP benefits in no-fault states. Part C Uninsured Motorists coverage steps into the shoes of an at-fault driver who has no liability insurance, whose insurer denies or is insolvent, or who cannot be identified. The hit-and-run trigger is important: an unidentified driver can qualify as uninsured, subject to the policy's proof requirements. Underinsured Motorists (UIM) coverage responds when the at-fault driver carries some liability insurance but less than the insured's damages. Most markets build UM/UIM around bodily injury only; Underinsured Motorists Property Damage (UIMPD) exists in a handful of jurisdictions as a rare optional coverage, largely because collision coverage already gives faster first-party recovery for vehicle damage. Stacking — combining UM/UIM limits across multiple vehicles on one policy or across multiple policies in a household — is a state-law question. There is no federal common-law stacking rule: under the McCarran-Ferguson framework, insurance regulation is reserved to the states, so stacking outcomes depend on state statute, court decisions, and the specific anti-stacking language ISO has built into the PAP over successive editions. Households with multiple vehicles and multiple policies also raise cross-coverage questions that the other-insurance and stacking provisions resolve.