M-3741g (12/2009)
M-3741g (12/2009) Page 1 of 3
OFFER OF OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL UNINSURED
MOTORIST COVERAGE AND OPTIONAL
UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE
I. EXPLANATION OF COVERAGES
The State of South Carolina’s automobile insurance laws now allow any insurance company to refuse to
underwrite your automobile liability insurance coverage. That refusal may be based upon a number of reasons.
Automobile liability insurance coverage pays other motor vehicle drivers and their passengers whom you
damage for the damages which you cause and for which you are legally responsible. There are two types of
automobile liability insurance coverage: bodily injury and property damage. Bodily injury coverage is a
coverage which pays people upon whom your motor vehicle inflicts bodily injury. Property damage coverage is
a coverage which pays people for damages which your automobile causes to their motor vehicles or property.
Once any insurance company makes the business decision to underwrite your automobile liability insurance
coverage, then it must provide to you at least $25,000.00 of bodily injury coverage for each person whom you
may injure in any single accident and $50,000.00 of bodily injury coverage for two or more people whom you
may injure in any single accident. The insurance company must also provide to you at least $25,000.00 in
property damage coverage for each accident which you may cause. You may have seen these limits described
as $25,000/$50,000/$25,000 or 25/50/25. These limits are commonly known as minimum limits. If you
purchase automobile liability insurance, then, in order to drive your automobile upon the roads of this State, you
must have at least minimum limits.
There is no requirement under the laws of this State that an insurance company which underwrites your
minimum limits of $25,000/$50,000/$25,000 must also agree to underwrite higher than those minimum limits of
automobile liability insurance coverage for you. If your insurance company does agree to offer to you more than
the minimum limits, then you will be required to pay an increased automobile insurance premium for those
increased limits of protection.
In addition, under this State's insurance laws, once an insurance company agrees to underwrite your
automobile liability insurance coverage, you must be offered, at your option, two additional automobile insurance
coverages which will protect you in the event you are damaged in an automobile accident by an at-fault
automobile driver who either has no automobile insurance or whose automobile insurance liability limits are less
than the damages which you suffer in that accident. These coverages are legally termed additional uninsured
motorist coverage and underinsured motorist coverage. You may see them referred to within your automobile
insurance policy as UM and UIM. If you decide to purchase either of these two optional coverages, then you will
be required to pay an additional automobile insurance premium for each of these additional coverages.
Un
insured motorist coverage compensates you, or other persons insured under your automobile
insurance policy, for amounts which you may be legally entitled to collect as damages from an owner or operator
of an at-fault uninsured motor vehicle. An uninsured motor vehicle is a motor vehicle which either has no liability
insurance coverage or is operated by a hit-and-run driver. By law, your automobile insurance policy automatically
must provide uninsured motorist coverage of $25,000/$50,000/$25,000. All uninsured motorist coverages
provide for a $200 deductible for uninsured property damage claims.
You also have the right to buy additional uninsured motorist coverage, in various limits, up to the limits of
the liability coverage which you will carry under your automobile insurance policy. Some of the more commonly-
sold limits of additional uninsured motorist coverage, together with the additional premiums which you will be
charged, have been printed by your insurance company upon this form. If there are other limits in which you are
interested, but which are not shown upon this form, then fill in those limits in the blanks provided. If your
insurance company is allowed to market those limits within this State, then your insurance agent will fill in the
amounts of increased premium.