Ohio Uninsured Driver Decision Overturned
By Gary Mogel
NU Online News Service, Nov.13, 11:04 a.m. EST? Ohio's highest court has reversed two previous rulings that insurers claimed unfairly expanded coverage afforded by uninsured/underinsured motorist provisions in automobile insurance policies.
Ruling last week in Westfield Ins. Co. v. Galatis, the Ohio Supreme Court held that an employer's auto policy provides uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage to company employees only for injuries sustained in the course and scope of their employment. The court also declined to extend UM/UIM coverage to employee family members.
"The most significant aspect to [the] ruling is that it all but overturns [prior] case law that has caused so much difficulty for personal and commercial lines insurers and their customers in Ohio," said David Snyder, general counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based American Insurance Association.
In 1999, Ohio's highest court had held in Scott-Pontzer v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co. that the employer's UM/UIM coverage applied even when employees were driving their own vehicles and were not doing any work or errands for their employer.
Another 1999 case of the same court, Ezawa v. Yasuda Fire & Marine Ins. Co. of America, extended the Scott-Pontzer case to also cover employee family members under the employer's UM/UIM coverage.
The previous rulings were "at odds with the intent of the parties and added substantial unpredictability and costs to auto insurance coverage in the state," noted a statement issued by AIA.
Efforts to overturn those decisions, AIA said, included enacting corrective legislation advocated by a coalition of businesses and insurers, and active participation by those businesses and insurers in the election campaign for Ohio justices.
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