Know Your Rights

Every Pennsylvania driver chooses between two options when they purchase auto insurance: limited tort or full tort. Most people choose limited tort without fully understanding what they're giving up — and they only discover the consequences after they're hurt.

What Is the Tort Election?

Pennsylvania is a "choice no-fault" state. When you buy auto insurance, your carrier is required to offer you a choice between limited and full tort coverage. The difference in premium is often modest — sometimes as little as $50–$100 per year. The difference in legal rights, however, can be enormous.

Full Tort

If you elect full tort, you retain the unrestricted right to sue the at-fault driver for all of your damages — including pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life — regardless of how severe or minor your injuries are.

Limited Tort

If you elect limited tort, you agree to limit your right to sue for non-economic damages (pain and suffering) unless you meet the threshold of a "serious injury." Under Pennsylvania law, a serious injury is defined as:

• Death
• Serious impairment of a body function
• Permanent serious disfigurement

This means that if you suffer a painful soft-tissue injury — a herniated disc, a torn rotator cuff, chronic neck or back pain — you may not be able to recover for your pain and suffering even if the other driver was completely at fault. Insurance companies love limited tort elections for exactly this reason.

Exceptions: When Limited Tort Doesn't Apply

Here is where many people — and frankly some attorneys — miss critical recovery opportunities. Even if you elected limited tort, there are several exceptions that restore your full tort rights:

• The at-fault driver was DUI at the time of the crash
• The at-fault driver was uninsured
• The at-fault vehicle was a commercial or business vehicle (delivery trucks, company cars, rideshares)
• The at-fault driver is registered in another state
• The crash was caused by an intentional act
• You yourself elected full tort — meaning if you are the passenger in someone else's vehicle, your own election governs

What You Should Do

If you've been injured in a car accident, do not assume your limited tort election is the end of the story. A competent personal injury attorney will analyze whether any of the above exceptions apply to your case. I've seen cases where insurance companies — and even other lawyers — failed to spot these exceptions, leaving injured clients without the recovery they deserved.

Insurance companies are not afraid of lawyers who never go to trial. They know who will fold, and they make their settlement offers accordingly. If you want maximum value for your case, you need a lawyer who has actually tried cases — and who will do it again when the stakes demand it.

What Insurance Companies Know That You Might Not

Large insurance carriers maintain internal databases tracking which law firms and attorneys regularly take cases to verdict and which ones consistently settle. They share this information across claims departments and with defense counsel. It is not speculation — it is industry practice.

When an insurer sees that your attorney has never tried a serious personal injury case, or hasn't been in front of a jury in years, they calculate their settlement offer accordingly. They know the bluff won't be called. That depresses the value of your case, often dramatically.

The Settlement Mill Problem

Many personal injury firms — particularly high-volume advertisers — operate as what practitioners call "settlement mills." Their business model depends on volume: sign up as many clients as possible, push for early settlements, collect the fee, move on. Trial preparation is expensive, time-consuming, and uncertain. For these firms, going to trial disrupts the assembly line.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a good settlement. Many cases should settle. But the willingness and ability to try a case — credibly, effectively — is the single greatest source of leverage in a personal injury negotiation. Without it, you're negotiating without leverage.

What Real Trial Experience Looks Like

There is a difference between an attorney who has tried a case and an attorney who has won hard cases in front of skeptical juries. Before you hire anyone, ask:

• How many jury trials have you personally taken to verdict?
• What types of cases — and what were the results?
• Are you willing to take my case to trial if the insurance company doesn't offer fair value?

As a former Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, I stood in front of juries regularly — often in the most difficult and emotionally charged cases imaginable. I cross-examined hostile witnesses, argued complex facts to lay jurors, and learned to read a courtroom. That experience doesn't leave you. It is the foundation of everything I do as a civil trial attorney today.

Even in the Toughest Cases

Insurance companies push hardest in cases they believe are difficult: cases with disputed liability, cases with gaps in medical treatment, cases with prior injuries, cases where the plaintiff made a statement early on. These are exactly the cases where trial experience matters most — because these are the cases that go to verdict. An attorney who won't try a hard case might as well advertise it.

The first call you receive from the other driver's insurance company after an accident is not a courtesy call. It is a business call — and their business is paying you as little as possible. The most cost-effective thing that can happen from their perspective is for you to handle the claim yourself.

The Friendly Adjuster Routine

Insurance adjusters are trained professionals. They are taught to seem sympathetic, helpful, and reasonable. They express concern for your wellbeing. They tell you the process is simple and they just need a few things to get your claim moving. What they are actually doing is gathering information to minimize or deny your claim.

They will ask you to give a recorded statement. Do not do this without speaking to an attorney first. Statements made in the days immediately following an accident — when you may be in shock, still discovering the extent of your injuries, or simply trying to be cooperative — can and will be used against you.

The Early Settlement Offer

One of the most common insurance tactics is the fast, lowball settlement offer made before you've finished treating, before you've received all your medical records, and before you fully understand the long-term consequences of your injuries. They'll write you a check for a few thousand dollars and ask you to sign a release — a document that permanently and forever waives your right to seek further compensation for that accident.

Once you sign a release, it is over. It does not matter that you later discover your herniated disc requires surgery. It does not matter that you develop chronic pain. The release is binding.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Study after study — including data from the Insurance Research Council — consistently shows that claimants represented by an attorney recover significantly more than unrepresented claimants, even after paying legal fees. The insurance industry knows this. It is why their adjusters are instructed to resolve claims quickly, before a lawyer gets involved.

They Have Lawyers. So Should You.

The insurance company defending the claim against you has a team of experienced defense attorneys on retainer whose sole job is to minimize what they pay injured people. They are very good at it. The idea that you can negotiate on equal footing with this apparatus — without legal representation — is, frankly, what they're counting on.

At The Levin Firm, we take personal injury cases on a contingency basis. You pay nothing unless and until we win. There is no financial barrier to getting a lawyer in your corner from day one — which is exactly when it matters most.

You do everything right. You buy insurance. You follow the rules. And then an uninsured driver runs a red light and seriously injures you. Or an underinsured driver causes a catastrophic crash — and their policy limits are a fraction of your medical bills. Pennsylvania law provides a protection for exactly this scenario, but only if you understand it and have it on your policy.

The Two Coverages Explained

Uninsured Motorist (UM) Coverage protects you when the at-fault driver has no auto insurance at all. UM coverage also applies in most hit-and-run accidents where the responsible driver cannot be identified. You are essentially making a claim against your own insurance company, which then steps into the shoes of the uninsured driver.

Underinsured Motorist (UIM) Coverage applies when the at-fault driver does have insurance — but their policy limits are not enough to fully compensate you for your injuries. If the at-fault driver has $15,000 in liability coverage and your injuries are worth $250,000, your UIM coverage can fill (or help fill) that gap.

Pennsylvania Law and Your Rights

Pennsylvania insurance carriers are required by law to offer UM and UIM coverage. However, you can waive it — and many people do, often without fully understanding what they're giving up. If you waived UM/UIM coverage, you generally cannot now claim you didn't understand what you were signing. This is why it is critical to review your own policy before an accident happens.

Stacking: A Critical Concept

Pennsylvania allows a practice called stacking of UM/UIM coverage. Stacking means combining the coverage limits across multiple vehicles on your policy — or in some cases, across multiple policies in your household. If you have two vehicles each with $100,000 in UIM coverage, stacking means you may have access to $200,000 in UIM coverage for a single accident.

Like UM/UIM coverage itself, stacking can be waived in writing. Many insurers push policyholders to waive stacking to reduce premiums. The savings are often minimal; the consequences of the waiver can be significant.

Making a UM/UIM Claim

Pursuing a UM or UIM claim is not as simple as calling your own insurance company and expecting them to write you a check. Your insurer — even though they are your own carrier — is still a business trying to minimize payments. UM/UIM claims frequently involve disputes over the value of the underlying injury claim, complex coverage issues, and procedural requirements with strict deadlines. An experienced personal injury attorney is critical to navigating this process correctly.

What You Should Do Right Now

Pull out your auto insurance declaration page. Check your UM and UIM limits. Check whether you have stacking. If you don't know what any of this means or can't find the information, call your agent — or call me. A quick policy review today could save you from a catastrophic shortfall tomorrow.

When you walk into a store, a restaurant, a mall, or any other business open to the public, the law places a powerful obligation on that property owner. It is called the duty owed to a business invitee — and it is the highest duty of care in premises liability law.

The Three Categories of Entrants

Pennsylvania premises liability law categorizes people who enter property into three groups, and the duty owed to each is different:

• Trespassers — People on the property without permission. Property owners generally owe them only the duty to refrain from willful or wanton misconduct.
• Licensees — People on the property with permission but for their own purposes (social guests, for example). Property owners must warn of known dangers that the licensee is unlikely to discover.
• Business Invitees — People on the property for a commercial purpose, at the express or implied invitation of the owner. Customers, shoppers, diners, patrons. Property owners owe this group the highest duty of care.

What the Highest Duty Actually Requires

For business invitees, a property owner must:

• Actively inspect the premises for dangerous conditions
• Discover dangerous conditions through reasonable inspection
• Correct those conditions, or warn invitees of dangers that cannot be immediately corrected

This is a proactive duty — not merely reactive. A store does not get to say "we didn't know about the spill" if the spill had been sitting on the floor for 45 minutes and employees were walking past it. Under the concept of constructive notice, if a dangerous condition existed long enough that a reasonably diligent business owner should have known about it, the law treats the owner as having known about it.

Common Scenarios

The business invitee duty applies to a wide range of dangerous conditions:

• Wet or slippery floors (spills, mopping, tracked-in rain or snow)
• Broken, cracked, or uneven flooring or sidewalks
• Inadequate lighting in aisles, parking lots, or stairwells
• Fallen or improperly stacked merchandise
• Defective shopping carts, ramps, or escalators
• Inadequate security leading to assault on the premises

The "Open and Obvious" Defense

One defense stores frequently raise is that the dangerous condition was "open and obvious" — meaning a reasonable person would have seen and avoided it. Pennsylvania courts have found that even open and obvious conditions can give rise to liability where the business owner should anticipate that invitees might be distracted, looking at merchandise, or otherwise unable to appreciate the danger. This defense is not automatic, and an experienced attorney can often overcome it.

Why This Matters for Your Case

Stores, restaurants, and shopping centers are insured, well-funded, and represented by aggressive defense teams. They will investigate quickly, preserve only the evidence that helps them, and look for any way to shift blame to you. Comparative negligence — the argument that you were partially at fault — is a common tactic. Your own attorney needs to move equally fast: photographing the scene, obtaining surveillance footage before it is overwritten, identifying witnesses, and preserving evidence of the store's prior knowledge of the hazard.

Pennsylvania law requires every driver to carry auto insurance. But the minimums the state sets are dangerously low — and millions of drivers are on the road right now with coverage that would leave you financially devastated if they hit you. Understanding what those minimums are, what they don't cover, and how to protect yourself is one of the most important things you can do before you ever need a lawyer.

What Pennsylvania's Minimum Auto Insurance Actually Requires

To legally drive in Pennsylvania, you must carry at least:

• $15,000 bodily injury liability per person — the most your insurance pays to one person you injure
• $30,000 bodily injury liability per accident — the total paid to all injured people in one crash
• $5,000 property damage liability — covers damage you cause to another person's vehicle or property
• $5,000 in first-party medical benefits — pays your own medical bills regardless of fault, up to this amount

Read those numbers again. If you are seriously injured by a minimum-coverage driver — a driver who is following the law — the most you can recover from their insurance is $15,000. One ambulance ride and a night in a Philadelphia hospital can exceed that. A single surgery can cost ten times that amount.

The Gap Between Minimums and Reality

Consider a realistic scenario: you are struck at an intersection, suffer a herniated disc requiring surgery, miss three months of work, and incur $80,000 in medical bills. The at-fault driver carries the Pennsylvania state minimum. Their insurer writes you a check for $15,000 — the policy limit — and closes the file. That is all you are getting from them.

The at-fault driver personally owes you the remainder, but if they had minimum coverage, they almost certainly don't have assets worth pursuing. You are left holding the difference. This is not a hypothetical — it happens constantly, and it is exactly why your own insurance policy is your most important financial protection on the road.

Uninsured Motorist Coverage: When the Other Driver Has Nothing

Pennsylvania consistently ranks among the states with the highest percentage of uninsured drivers. Estimates suggest that roughly 1 in 8 Pennsylvania drivers has no insurance at all. When an uninsured driver causes an accident and injures you, there is no liability policy to claim against. Without Uninsured Motorist (UM) coverage on your own policy, you have no insurance recovery available — period.

UM coverage steps in as if your own insurer is the at-fault driver. You make a claim against your own policy. It also typically covers hit-and-run accidents where the responsible driver flees and cannot be identified. If you are a pedestrian or cyclist struck by an uninsured vehicle, UM coverage on your own auto policy may still apply.

Underinsured Motorist Coverage: When the Other Driver Doesn't Have Enough

Underinsured Motorist (UIM) coverage applies when the at-fault driver has insurance — but not enough of it to cover your actual damages. This is the scenario described above: the driver who hits you carries $15,000 in coverage and your damages are $150,000. Your UIM coverage can make up the gap, up to your own policy limits.

The way UIM works in Pennsylvania: once the at-fault driver's liability policy is exhausted (you've received their full policy limit), you can then make a UIM claim against your own insurer for the remaining damages. Your UIM limit minus the other driver's liability limit is the maximum available to you — which is why carrying high UIM limits is so important.

Stacking: Multiplying Your Protection

If you have more than one vehicle on your policy — or multiple policies in your household — Pennsylvania allows you to stack UM/UIM coverage across vehicles. If each of your two vehicles carries $100,000 in UIM coverage, stacking gives you up to $200,000 in UIM coverage for a single accident. Stacking can also apply across household members' separate policies in some circumstances.

Insurance companies routinely ask policyholders to waive stacking — often buried in the paperwork — because it reduces the insurer's exposure. The premium savings from waiving stacking are typically modest. The consequences of waiving it can be enormous.

What Coverage Limits Should You Actually Carry?

As a general rule, you should carry UM/UIM limits that match your liability limits, and both should be as high as you can reasonably afford. A common recommendation for a working professional in Pennsylvania:

• Bodily injury liability: $100,000 per person / $300,000 per accident (or higher)
• UM/UIM: $100,000 per person / $300,000 per accident — with stacking
• First-party medical benefits: $100,000 (dramatically better than the $5,000 minimum)
• Tort election: Full tort — never limited tort if you can help it

The difference in annual premium between minimum coverage and robust coverage is often less than $500 per year. The difference in financial protection is the difference between a manageable recovery and a catastrophe.

If You've Already Been Hit by a Minimum-Coverage or Uninsured Driver

If you are already dealing with the aftermath of an accident caused by an underinsured or uninsured driver, contact an attorney immediately. UM and UIM claims against your own insurer are more adversarial than most people expect — your insurer's interests are not aligned with yours in these disputes. An experienced personal injury attorney navigates this process regularly and can make the difference between a fair recovery and a lowball settlement from your own carrier.