The Importance of Having Insurance

Insurance is the least interesting purchase most people make and the one that decides the outcome after the worst day of their lives. Nobody reads the declarations page. Nobody remembers which boxes were checked at the agency six years ago. Then a driver runs a light on Colfax, the hospital bill arrives, and the only question that matters is what limits sat behind the other car and what sat behind your own. Boesen Law has watched serious claims run into a policy ceiling far too often, and the uninsured motorist coverage a client either bought or declined is frequently the difference between a full recovery and a partial one.

This is an updated version of an older post that recommended four kinds of coverage. That advice still holds. What it lacked was the numbers, the statutes, and the reason those numbers stopped being adequate a long time ago. This version supplies them, with the Colorado rules that govern each coverage and what happens when they run out.

What Colorado Requires, and Why It Stopped Being Enough

The legal minimum in this state is lower than most drivers assume and has not been touched in more than two decades.

Under C.R.S. § 10-4-620, the basic coverage required for compliance is liability coverage of $25,000 for bodily injury to any one person in any one accident, $50,000 for all persons in any one accident, and $15,000 for property damage. The Colorado Division of Insurance states those same figures on its consumer page. That section was enacted in 2003 and the numbers have not been raised since.

Consider what $25,000 buys in 2026. It does not cover a single night in a trauma bay followed by an orthopedic surgery. It does not cover six months of physical therapy plus the wages lost while attending it. A driver carrying exactly the minimum has bought a policy sized for the medical economy of the early 2000s, and the person they hit inherits the shortfall.

Driving without coverage at all is a separate problem with its own consequences. C.R.S. § 42-4-1409 makes it a class 1 misdemeanor traffic offense to operate a vehicle on Colorado highways without a complying policy or certificate of self-insurance, with a mandatory minimum fine. That penalty does nothing for the person who was hit. The Division of Insurance estimates that 15 to 20 percent of drivers on the road are uninsured, which is the entire argument for the next section.

For answers to your questions, call:
(303) 999-9999

Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage Is the One to Get Right

If you read nothing else here, read this. UM/UIM is the only coverage that responds when the person who hurt you cannot pay for it.

What it covers

UM/UIM pays your bodily injury damages when the at-fault driver has no insurance, has too little insurance, or cannot be identified at all. The Division of Insurance describes it as covering losses caused by a hit-and-run driver, a driver with no automobile insurance, or a driver of an underinsured vehicle. A motorist counts as underinsured when their liability limits are not enough to pay the full amount you are legally entitled to recover.

The hit-and-run application matters more than people expect. When the other car leaves, your own UM coverage becomes the claim, and it is why proving a hit-and-run is a first-party evidence problem rather than a chase.

Why it is on your policy already, unless you signed it away

Colorado does not make UM/UIM mandatory, but it does not let insurers omit it quietly either. C.R.S. § 10-4-609 requires an automobile liability policy issued in this state to provide the coverage in the limits set by § 42-7-103(2) unless the named insured rejects it in writing. That written rejection is a real document, and it exists in the file at the agency where the policy was sold.

The practical consequence is that a driver who never signed anything probably has UM/UIM at their liability limits and does not know it. Pulling the declarations page settles it in a minute.

How much to carry

More than the liability limits, if the budget allows. Liability protects the people you might hit. UM/UIM protects you and everyone in your household. Because roughly one driver in five is uninsured and a great many more carry the 2003 minimum, the coverage that will actually respond to a catastrophic injury is usually your own. Raising UM/UIM limits is one of the cheapest changes available on an auto policy, and clients who did it before a spinal cord injury are in a categorically different position from clients who did not.

The Other Coverages That Do Real Work After an Injury

The original version of this post grouped these together, and the grouping was right. The reasoning deserves updating.

• Medical payments coverage. Colorado auto policies carry at least $5,000 in med pay unless the named insured rejected it in writing, and the benefit is paid regardless of fault. It funds the first weeks of treatment while everything else is still in dispute, which is exactly when patients are most likely to skip care they cannot pay for.
• Health insurance. After a serious crash it is the primary payer for anything beyond med pay. The plan will assert a reimbursement interest against a later settlement, which is negotiable and is resolved at the end rather than at the start. Coverage gaps are the expensive scenario, because treatment delayed for cost reasons damages both the recovery and the claim.
• Disability coverage. Short-term and long-term disability, whether through an employer or purchased individually, replaces income while a person is unable to work. Auto liability policies pay once, at the end. Rent is monthly. This is the coverage that fills the gap between those two schedules, and its absence is why families settle early for less than a case is worth.
• Homeowners and renters insurance. Beyond property loss, these policies carry personal liability coverage that responds when someone is injured on your property or by a member of your household, including in many dog bite claims. Renters policies are inexpensive and are declined far more often than they should be.
• Life insurance. It is the only coverage that operates when a death is nobody’s legal fault, and it pays quickly rather than after litigation. Where a death was caused by negligence, life insurance and a wrongful death claim are separate recoveries that do not offset one another, and Colorado’s statute limits who can file a wrongful death lawsuit and when.

How Coverage Decides What a Claim Is Actually Worth

There is a difference between what a case is worth and what a case can collect, and most people encounter it for the first time in the worst possible circumstances.

A claim’s value is built from medical expenses, future care, lost wages, lost earning capacity, and non-economic harm. Colorado caps the last category: for claims accruing on or after January 1, 2025, C.R.S. § 13-21-102.5 limits non-economic damages to $1.5 million in most personal injury actions, with medical malpractice and wrongful death governed by separate statutes. Nothing in that section limits compensation for physical impairment or disfigurement.

Collection is a different exercise. It runs through available policies in order: the at-fault driver’s liability coverage, any commercial or employer policy if they were working, umbrella coverage, your own UM/UIM, med pay, and occasionally a third party such as a bar under dram shop law or a property owner. A claim worth $900,000 against a driver with a $25,000 policy and no assets collects $25,000 unless another source exists. Finding those sources before anyone signs a release is a large part of what a Denver car accident lawyer does in the opening weeks, and releases are usually written broadly enough to close doors nobody checked.

Reading Your Own Declarations Page Tonight

1. Find the bodily injury liability limits. Two numbers, per person and per accident. If they read 25 and 50, you are at the state minimum.
2. Look for UM/UIM. If it is absent, someone signed a written rejection. Ask the agent for a copy, then ask what adding it back would cost.
3. Check medical payments. Confirm it is there and note the amount. Many carriers sell $5,000, $10,000, and $25,000 tiers, and the step up is inexpensive.
4. Confirm every household driver is listed. An excluded driver creates a coverage hole nobody discovers until there is a claim.
5. Check whether an umbrella policy exists and whether it extends to auto liability and to UM/UIM, since umbrella coverage does not always follow both.
6. Note the notice requirements. Policies impose their own deadlines for reporting a crash, and those run far shorter than any legal filing deadline.

An Attorney’s View on Coverage Disputes

Adam Kehrli has practiced law in Colorado for 25 years and spent the first twelve of them working on behalf of insurance companies before turning that experience against them. He notes:

“I spent over a decade learning how these files get evaluated from the inside, and the thing that still surprises clients is how early the number gets set. It is not set when the demand goes out. It is set in the first few weeks, from the coverage available, the treatment pattern, and whether anybody on our side has actually gone looking for a second policy. Half the cases I see arrive with one policy identified and three that nobody checked. Household resident coverage, an umbrella, a commercial policy because the other driver was making a delivery. Those are not exotic. They are just work nobody did. When a carrier knows you have not looked, it prices the file accordingly, and it is entitled to.”

Layered coverage analysis is not a formality on a serious claim. It is the difference between a settlement that covers a lifetime of care and one that runs out in eighteen months.

What Cases Like Yours Have Recovered

Boesen Law recovered $475,000 for a client who was rear-ended by an FBI vehicle, whose prior spinal problems worsened to the point of requiring surgery, and whose physical injuries the responsible party initially refused to cover. The firm also recovered $1,450,000 for a client side-struck on Arapahoe Road by a driver traveling at 90 miles per hour, whose vehicle was totaled and whose recovery involved recurring surgeries and infections. Both required pursuing every source of payment rather than accepting the first one offered. Our case results reflect that approach.

Contact a Colorado Injury Lawyer at Boesen Law

If you have been hurt and are being told the other driver carried minimum limits, that conversation is not over. It is the beginning of the coverage investigation, and the answer frequently turns out to be different once someone looks properly at household policies, employer coverage, and umbrella endorsements.

Backed by decades of combined legal experience, Boesen Law works in English, Spanish, and Russian, our phones are staffed day and night, and nothing is owed in attorney fees unless a recovery comes in. Contact Boesen Law and we will set up a free, in-person consultation. Bring your declarations page along with anything the other driver’s insurer has sent you.

FAQs About Insurance Coverage After a Colorado Injury

Is uninsured motorist coverage required in Colorado?

No, but it is on your policy unless you removed it deliberately. Colorado treats UM/UIM as optional, and the Division of Insurance confirms that it is included in an auto policy unless the named insured rejects it in writing. C.R.S. § 10-4-609 requires the coverage to be provided at statutory limits absent that written rejection. Most drivers who assume they do not have it turn out to have it, and most who genuinely lack it signed a form at the agency years ago without registering what it did. The declarations page settles the question faster than a phone call.

How long do I have to bring a claim, and is my policy deadline the same?

They are not the same, and confusing them is a common and expensive error. Under C.R.S. § 13-80-101, a motor vehicle injury claim generally has to be filed inside three years of the crash date, while § 13-80-102 holds most other personal injury claims to two, and filing deadlines for Colorado injury claims vary further by claim type. Your own policy’s notice provisions are contractual, considerably shorter, and independent of any statute. Late notice to your own carrier can jeopardize a UM/UIM claim even when the lawsuit deadline is years away.

What happens if the at-fault driver’s limits do not cover my injuries?

Your underinsured motorist coverage is designed for exactly that gap, and it pays the difference between what the at-fault policy covers and what you are legally entitled to recover, up to your own limits. Colorado law generally allows UIM benefits in addition to the liability recovery rather than offsetting it. Beyond UIM, the analysis looks at whether the driver was working, whether an umbrella policy exists, whether a bar or another party contributed to the crash, and whether the driver has assets worth pursuing. Personal assets are the least productive of those avenues and the one clients ask about first.

Does my health insurance take my settlement money?

It takes part of it, and the amount is negotiable. A health plan that paid for crash-related treatment normally holds a subrogation or reimbursement right against a recovery for the same injury. How strong that right is depends on the type of plan, since a self-funded ERISA plan operates under different rules from a state-regulated one. These interests are resolved as part of the settlement rather than after it, and reductions are routinely negotiated, particularly where the total recovery does not make the client whole.

Should I carry more than the state minimum liability coverage?

Yes, for a reason that has nothing to do with charity toward strangers. Liability limits protect your own assets. Cause a serious injury while carrying $25,000, and the injured person’s lawyer looks past the policy at your house, your wages, and your savings. Raising liability limits and adding an umbrella policy is generally inexpensive compared to what a judgment above the limits would cost, and it also raises the UM/UIM limits available to your own family, since carriers typically tie the two together.

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