High six figure recovery for motorcyclist injured by careless driver

Motorcyclists sometimes get a “bad rap” because of a reputation for fast, carefree driving on the open highway, and, therefore, when they are involved in accidents people often immediately assume the motorcyclist must have been at fault.  That is not always true.  A recent case of ours was an example of that.  We represented a young woman who had recently graduated from college and was out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon for a ride on Route 19 north of Pittsburgh.  Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, a car pulled out of a side street, made a left turn directly into her path and crashed squarely into the motorcycle, hurdling our client through the air, and crashing onto the highway pavement.  The young motorcyclist suffered multiple trauma injuries including fractured wrist, fractured femur, fractured pelvis, and more.  She ended up spending some weeks in the hospital and eventually made a good recovery.

We filed a claim against the other driver, but unfortunately, they only had $100,000 in insurance coverage which we quickly collected.  Next, we made a claim for underinsured motorist protection under our client’s own motor vehicle insurance policy. Underinsured coverage is something that a person can buy that provides them with protection in the event they get hit by someone who does not have enough insurance to cover their injuries.  This case was a perfect example of a client who was hurt by an “underinsured,” at-fault driver.  Therefore, it was a good thing that our client had obtained a large amount of underinsured motorist protection.  After preparing a very complete presentation describing the full impact of our client’s injury, we eventually persuaded the insurance company to pay the maximum amount of underinsured coverage that existed, which in this case was several hundred thousand dollars.  A case like this is a perfect example of why we always advise our clients to purchase as much underinsured motorist coverage as they can afford.  That is good advice for anyone to follow.