Policy Limits Out Of State Vehicle-

What happens when you are involved in an accident in the State of Maryland with a driver who has a car registered in another state and who purchased insurance in another state.

Maryland has mandatory insurance requirements for vehicles which are required to be registered in Maryland.

Policy Limits Out Of State Vehicle

Maryland does not have mandatory minimum insurance for vehicles that are not required to be registered in Maryland.  The authority for this proposition is the case of Allstate v. Hart, 327 Md. 526 (1992).  At page 533, the Court says: If an automobile is not required to be registered in Maryland, and if the insurance policy covering an automobile was not issued, sold, or delivered in Maryland, the statutory provisions mandating particular insurance coverages, authorizing specified exclusions from those coverages, and generally not authorizing other exclusions, are totally inapplicable.

Because each state law can have a different requirement with regard to the minimum amount of insurance that will be available in case of an accident. Maryland requires a minimum of $30,000.00 in insurance. But suppose the car is registered in another state that only requires $15,000.00 in insurance. What can you do if your case is worth more than the amount of insurance that the other cars state requires.

Policy Limits Out Of State Vehicle

Some out of state policies have language that says that “if you travel into another state, we will change our policy limits to meet the policy limits required in that state or if you travel into a state that has mandatory policy limits for non-residents, we will change our policy limits….”

Many insurance carriers either voluntarily conform their policies to the new state minimum or can be convinced to do so.

New Jersey is the only state, a “deemer” state, to consider out of state policies as deemed to be written in New Jersey and thus subject to their minimum coverages.

Finally, when all else fails you can file an uninsured motorist claim for the difference through your own Maryland policy.

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