The driver who ran the red light at Thomas and 32nd Street has no insurance card, a suspended license, and no assets worth suing over. Your medical bills are already past $40,000. In that situation your own policy is usually the only real source of payment, which means filing an uninsured motorist coverage Arizona claim against your own insurance company.
Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage pays for your injuries when the at-fault driver has no insurance; underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage pays when that driver's limits are too low to cover your losses. Under ARS 20-259.01, every Arizona auto insurer must offer both in writing, in amounts up to your own liability limits, and any rejection must be documented. Arizona's minimum liability limits are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, which one ambulance ride and two hospital days can exhaust. To collect, you file with your own carrier, prove the other driver was at fault, prove your damages, and for UIM, exhaust the at-fault driver's policy and get your insurer's written consent before signing any release. Deadlines matter: UM/UIM claims are contract claims, but most Arizona policies impose their own notice and suit deadlines. Your insurer then stands in the shoes of the driver who hurt you, and it will fight the claim like any other defendant.
Arizona Has a Lot of Uninsured Drivers
Industry estimates consistently put Arizona in the worst quarter of states for uninsured drivers, with roughly one in nine motorists carrying no liability coverage at all. Add everyone driving on bare 25/50 minimum limits and the real number of crashes where the at-fault driver cannot pay is far higher than one in nine.
That is why we tell every client to buy UM/UIM coverage at the highest limit they can afford. It is cheap compared to liability coverage because you are the only person it protects, and it is the only part of your policy that pays you when someone else destroys your knee.
Check Whether You Actually Have the Coverage
Pull your declarations page, not your ID card. Look for a line that says "Uninsured Motorists" or "UM BI" and a separate line for "Underinsured Motorists." If you see limits listed, you have coverage in that amount per person and per accident.
If the page shows rejection, do not stop there. ARS 20-259.01 requires the insurer to make the offer and obtain a written rejection on a form approved by the Arizona Department of Insurance. Carriers get this wrong. When the rejection form is defective or missing, Arizona courts have read UM coverage back into the policy at the minimum limits, and sometimes at the liability limits.
Also check other policies in the household. You may be covered as a resident relative under a parent's or spouse's policy, and a passenger injured in someone else's car can often claim under both the host vehicle's UM coverage and their own.
Filing an Uninsured Motorist Coverage Arizona Claim: What the Process Looks Like
Report the crash to your own carrier right away, even if you think the other driver was insured. Insurers routinely argue late notice prejudiced their investigation, and that argument gets much stronger when you wait six months.
Prove the other driver was at fault
A UM claim is a liability case dressed up as a contract case. You still have to show the other driver breached a duty and caused your injuries, and Arizona's pure comparative fault rule under ARS 12-2505 still applies. If your carrier assigns you 30 percent of the blame, it will try to cut your recovery by 30 percent. Photographs, the DPS or Phoenix PD report, scene video, and independent witnesses carry the same weight here as they would against a defendant driver.
Prove your damages
Medical records, billing ledgers, wage documentation, and testimony about how the injury changed your daily life. Our car accident attorneys build UM files the same way we build trial files, because adjusters value a claim based on what they think it is worth if we sue.
For UIM, exhaust and get consent first
Before you can reach your underinsured coverage, you generally have to collect the at-fault driver's policy limits. Nearly every policy also requires your carrier's written consent before you release the at-fault driver, so the insurer can protect its subrogation rights. Sign a release without that consent and you may hand your own insurer a defense to the entire claim. Ask in writing. Keep the response.
Hit-and-Run and Phantom Vehicles
A hit-and-run driver counts as uninsured under most Arizona policies, so UM coverage applies even when nobody ever identifies the car. Report it to law enforcement immediately; many policies require notice within 24 hours and require corroboration beyond your own statement when there was no physical contact, such as a witness or a nearby surveillance camera. We have seen valid phantom-vehicle claims die because the injured driver went home, slept on it, and called police two days later. Hit-and-run cases move fast or not at all, which is a theme in several of the Phoenix crashes our personal injury lawyers handle every year.
Stacking and Multiple Policies
Arizona permits stacking of UM and UIM coverage across separate policies in many situations, subject to ARS 20-259.01 and the specific policy language. If you own two cars insured under different policies, or you were hurt in a vehicle you do not own, more than one layer of coverage may be available. Anti-stacking clauses within a single multi-vehicle policy are treated differently and depend heavily on how the policy is written. Nobody should accept a carrier's first answer on this question without having the actual policy forms reviewed.
Your Insurer Owes You Good Faith
Once you file, the relationship changes. Under Arizona law, your insurer owes you a duty of good faith and fair dealing, and the Arizona Supreme Court held in Zilisch v. State Farm that an insurer must give equal consideration to your interests and cannot lowball a claim it knows is worth more. Unreasonable delay, ignoring your treating physicians, or inventing coverage defenses can expose the carrier to a separate bad faith claim with punitive damages on the table.
Deadlines Are Not What You Think
A negligence claim against the at-fault driver dies two years after the crash under ARS 12-542. A UM/UIM claim is a contract claim against your insurer and often carries a longer deadline, but your policy may impose its own shorter suit limitation or arbitration demand requirement. Do not gamble on which rule controls your file.
Sher Law Group handles uninsured and underinsured claims throughout Phoenix, Scottsdale, and the rest of Maricopa County. If you are considering an uninsured motorist coverage Arizona claim, call 480-418-7437 for a free consultation. There is no fee unless we win, and you can read more about how we handle Car Accidents cases before you decide.