Hit by an Uninsured Driver in New York? Your SUM Coverage Explained
The other driver has no insurance, or their policy lapsed, or they fled. The instinct is that your claim died with their coverage. It usually did not — it just changed direction. In New York the recovery now comes from coverage on your own policy that you may not know you have, and from a state fund built for exactly this. What actually dies claims in this situation is not the missing insurance. It is the deadlines.
Where the money comes from now
Your no-fault benefits are unaffected. The first layer — medical bills and lost earnings up to the basic $50,000 — comes from your own insurer regardless of anyone's fault or coverage, exactly as in any crash. The 30-day application deadline applies exactly as always; see how New York no-fault works.
Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is mandatory on every New York auto policy. It stands in for the missing driver's liability insurance, at the state minimum of $25,000 per person, and covers you, your household relatives, and your passengers. A hit-and-run driver counts as uninsured, so the same coverage answers when the driver was never found.
Supplementary UM/UIM (SUM) coverage is the one that changes lives. UM at $25,000 is thin for a serious injury. SUM coverage — optional, cheap, and offered with every policy under Insurance Law § 3420(f)(2) — raises that protection up to the liability limits you bought for yourself, and it also answers when the other driver is underinsured: carrying something, but less than your SUM limit. If you carry $100,000/$300,000 liability with matching SUM and are badly hurt by a $25,000 driver, SUM is where the real recovery lives. Most people learn whether they bought it only after a crash; it is worth checking your declarations page today.
MVAIC catches those with no policy to claim under. A pedestrian or cyclist with no auto policy in their household, hit by an uninsured or unidentified driver, claims through the Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation — the state's fund of last resort. It pays at the statutory minimum levels, and it has its own procedures and its own unforgiving clock.
The deadlines, which are shorter than the ones you know
- No-fault: 30 days to your own insurer.
- UM/SUM: your policy requires notice of the claim "as soon as practicable" — a phrase insurers enforce aggressively. Weeks can be too long. Notify your carrier of a potential UM/SUM claim immediately, in writing, even while the other driver's coverage is still being investigated.
- Hit-and-run: the accident must be reported to police within 24 hours (or as soon as reasonably possible) for the uninsured-driver protections to apply — this is the requirement most often missed, on the theory that there was nobody to report.
- MVAIC: a notice of intention to file a claim within 90 days for hit-and-run cases, 180 days for uninsured-vehicle cases. Miss it and the fund is closed to you, with narrow exceptions.
None of these wait for you to find out whether the driver was actually insured. The safe sequence is to trigger everything at once — police report, no-fault application, written UM/SUM notice, and an MVAIC notice if there is any chance no household policy exists — and let the ones that turn out unnecessary lapse.
How a SUM claim actually proceeds
A UM/SUM claim is a claim against your own insurer — and the moment you make it, your own insurer takes the role the other driver's insurer would have had. It investigates you, disputes the serious injury threshold, and negotiates against you, because it now holds the liability. Loyalty does not survive the claim; treat your carrier as the adversary it has become, politely and in writing.
Disputed UM/SUM claims generally go to arbitration rather than a jury — faster, but with its own strategy. Two traps worth knowing: your policy likely requires the insurer's consent before you settle with an underinsured driver for their small limits (settling without consent can void your SUM coverage), and offsets mean SUM pays the difference between what the other driver's coverage paid and your SUM limit, not both stacked. These are exactly the mechanics we handle — see hit and run accidents and motor vehicle accidents.
Common questions
What happens if you are hit by an uninsured driver in New York?
Your own no-fault pays the first medical bills and lost earnings; your mandatory uninsured motorist coverage stands in for the missing liability insurance; SUM coverage, if you bought it, raises that to your own limits; and MVAIC exists for injured people with no household policy at all. The claim survives — the deadlines are the danger.
Can I sue an uninsured driver personally?
You can, and occasionally it is worth it — but a judgment against someone who could not afford insurance is usually a piece of paper. The practical recovery is UM/SUM and, where it applies, MVAIC.
What is the difference between UM and SUM?
UM is mandatory and covers the uninsured and hit-and-run situations at the $25,000 state minimum. SUM is the optional supplement that raises that protection toward your own liability limits and also covers the underinsured driver — one who has coverage, just not enough.
The driver fled and was never identified. Do I still have a claim?
Yes — a hit-and-run driver is treated as uninsured. But the police report within 24 hours is what preserves it, and MVAIC's 90-day notice applies if you have no household policy. Report first, investigate later.
Will claiming against my own policy raise my rates?
New York restricts insurers from surcharging you for accidents you did not principally cause, and a UM/SUM claim is by definition about someone else's fault. It is not a reason to leave your own coverage unclaimed.
This page is general information about New York law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Davidov & Cohen Law. To talk about your own situation, tell us what happened.
Tell Us What Happened
Free consultation. No fee unless we win. We'll get back to you the same day.