Colorado Uninsured Motorist Lawyer
The driver who hit you on I-70 had no insurance, or a policy too small to matter. UM/UIM coverage exists for exactly that moment. Now the company you’ve paid for years decides what your injuries are worth. When it delays, undervalues, or denies the claim, we make the policy pay what it promised.
The short answer
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage pays for your injuries when the at-fault driver has no insurance or not enough. The claim goes to your own insurer. Because it’s your own insurer, Colorado’s insurance bad faith law applies if the company unreasonably delays or denies it.
Deadline
Generally three years to sue or demand arbitration. Your policy’s notice rules run far shorter.
The basics
What does uninsured motorist coverage pay for?
Your injuries, not your car. Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage steps in when the driver who hurt you has no liability insurance — or can’t be found, as in a hit-and-run. Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage fills the gap when that driver has a policy, but a small one. Either way it pays what a liability claim would — medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering — up to the limit you bought.
That limit is worth a hard look. Colorado requires every insurer to offer UM/UIM coverage matching your own liability limits, so whatever you bought to protect other people is what you’re offered to protect yourself. Plenty of drivers wave it off to save a few dollars a month and find out what they gave up when an uninsured driver runs a light on Grand Avenue.
UIM also does math the insurer doesn’t advertise. The statute says the coverage pays the difference between the at-fault driver’s limits and your actual damages, up to your UM/UIM limit. That amount can’t be reduced by what your health insurance or medical-payments coverage already paid. In our practice, the first UIM offer often starts from a deduction the law doesn’t allow.
UM/UIM pays nothing toward damage to your vehicle. That comes from collision coverage, or the optional property-damage add-on covered below. The rest of the policy is its own fight; see our auto insurance claims page.
How it happens
Four ways insurers shrink a UM/UIM claim.
Insurers rarely deny a UM/UIM claim outright. Your own company would rather say yes slowly and pay small. The pattern runs through the same four places.
1
The recorded statement
Your adjuster calls the week after the crash asking how you’re feeling. “Fine, thanks” becomes the first exhibit that you weren’t hurt. The company you’re talking to is the company that pays — remember which side of the table it’s on.
2
The insurer’s doctor
The company picks the physician, pays the physician, and receives a report saying your neck was already bad before the crash. Pre-existing-condition arguments are the workhorse of UM/UIM undervaluation, and your own treating records beat them.
3
Disputing the other driver
Was he really uninsured? Was there really a second car in the hit-and-run? The file sits while the insurer “confirms coverage” on a driver it could have looked up in an afternoon.
4
The silent wait
No denial, no offer, no explanation — months of “under review” while your bills go to collections. Delay isn’t neutral. The insurer knows what unpaid medical bills do to a person’s willingness to settle.
Recognize your claim in one of these? That’s usually where the case starts.
Plain answers
Do I need uninsured motorist coverage in Colorado?
Legally, no. Colorado makes insurers offer it, not drivers carry it — the coverage comes with every Colorado auto policy unless you reject it in writing. Practically, it’s the coverage we’d tell our own families never to drop.
Here’s why. Colorado’s minimum liability policy pays $25,000 per injured person. One night in a hospital, a helicopter off Vail Pass, and that policy is gone before the surgery starts. Every dollar of your injuries above the at-fault driver’s limit comes from your UIM coverage, from your own health coverage, or from a driver who bought minimum limits because that’s what he could afford.
And plenty of drivers carry nothing. About one in seven drivers nationally was uninsured in 2023. Colorado won’t register a car without proof of insurance, which doesn’t stop a policy from lapsing once the plates arrive.
Take the limit the insurer has to offer you. The premium is small. The claim, when you need it, isn’t.
What is uninsured motorist property damage coverage?
An add-on that pays to fix your car when an uninsured driver hits it. The Division of Insurance spells out the rules: it’s optional, sold only if you don’t carry collision, and pays the lesser of your car’s cash value or the repair cost. Physical contact is required — a phantom driver who runs you into the guardrail without touching you doesn’t count, at least for the car.
If you carry collision, use it. It pays regardless of fault, and your insurer can chase the uninsured driver for the deductible. The add-on is a narrow tool for people who skipped collision: no loss of use, no rental, nothing already payable under other property coverage.
Most of the value in a UM/UIM claim sits on the injury side. That’s where we spend our time.
Bring us the policy and the offer.
Your declarations page, the adjuster’s last letter, and your medical bills. The gap between the offer and the limit usually tells us whether you have a case.
Results
What a lowballed UM/UIM claim is actually worth.
Three results from our auto practice: two uninsured-motorist claims against our own clients’ insurers, and what a jury does with a drunk driver.
$2.5M
policy-limits settlement · uninsured motorist
A bicyclist with a brain injury, hit by an uninsured driver who ran a red light. We pursued our client’s own uninsured motorist carrier and recovered every dollar under the policy.
$900K
settlement · UM/UIM benefits
A car crash with an underinsured driver. Before we got involved, our client’s UM/UIM carrier offered $0. After, the same carrier paid $900,000.
$4.74M
jury verdict · drunk driver crash
A man in his late 70s, severely injured by a drunk driver. The Douglas County jury found the driver 100% at fault and added punitive damages — one of the largest verdicts in the county that year.
Every case is different; past results don’t guarantee future outcomes.
Deadlines
How long do I have to file a UM/UIM claim in Colorado?
Colorado gives UM/UIM claims their own deadline: three years to file suit or demand arbitration, counted from when you knew, or should have known, about the injury and what caused it. The window can stretch when you’ve already sued the at-fault driver; it never shrinks below three years.
Three years sounds generous. Your policy carries its own clocks: prompt notice of the crash, notice before you settle with the other driver, cooperation with the investigation. Those clocks run in weeks. Miss one and the insurer will argue you forfeited the coverage before the statute ever came up.
The settlement rule is the one that bites. Many policies require your insurer’s consent before you accept the at-fault driver’s limits, and the insurer will point to that clause the moment you sign a release without asking. Have us read it first.
And the injury claim against the driver runs on its own deadline. Two clocks, two defendants, one crash. If nobody has put the dates on paper yet, do that this week.
What we handle
What kinds of auto claims do we handle?
Any crash where the insurance falls short of the injuries — the at-fault driver’s policy, yours, or both. The coverage fights differ by crash type. Start with the page that matches yours.
Car accidents
The liability claim against the other driver, the UIM claim against your own insurer, and the order to pursue them in.
Car accident claims →
Hit-and-run accidents
No driver, no policy — your UM coverage is the whole case, and the insurer will ask you to prove a second car existed.
Hit-and-run claims →
Drunk-driving crashes
Punitive damages against the driver, and a UM/UIM claim that doesn’t depend on collecting them.
Drunk driving claims →
Motorcycle accidents
Serious injuries, small liability policies. Many motorcycle claims turn into UIM claims fast.
Motorcycle claims →
Uber & Lyft accidents
Rideshare coverage depends on what the driver’s app was doing when you were hit. Which policy pays is the fight.
Rideshare claims →
Pedestrian accidents
Your own auto policy’s UM coverage can follow you onto the sidewalk. Check before assuming there’s nothing to claim.
Pedestrian claims →
Bicycle accidents
Our largest published UM result was a cyclist hit by an uninsured driver. Your policy may cover you on a bike, too.
Bicycle claims →
Truck accidents
Commercial policies are bigger, and so are the defense teams. When even that falls short, UIM fills the gap.
Truck accident claims →
Your own insurer
How is a UM/UIM claim different from a normal auto claim?
In a normal claim you’re a stranger to the insurer. The other driver’s company owes you a fair look and nothing more; if it lowballs you, your remedy is a lawsuit against the driver. A UM/UIM claim flips that. You’re the customer, and the company is paying you out of its own policy — which is exactly why it fights harder.
The flip cuts both ways. Because you’re the insurer’s own policyholder — a first-party claimant, in the statute’s words — Colorado law says the company may not unreasonably delay or deny payment of the benefits it owes you. A stranger claiming against someone else’s policy doesn’t get that protection. You do.
Two more differences. Some UM/UIM policies send disputes to arbitration instead of a jury — read that clause early. And your insurer stands in the at-fault driver’s shoes, so it can raise every defense he could have, including that the crash was partly your fault. Colorado cuts your recovery by your share of the blame and bars it entirely if your share equals or exceeds the other driver’s. Expect the adjuster to know that rule better than you do.
What if my insurer delays or denies a valid UM/UIM claim?
Get it in writing. A denial should name the policy language and the reason; a delay should come with a date. Ask by email, keep the answers, and keep meeting your own deadlines while the insurer ignores its.
An insurer is allowed to be wrong about your claim; it isn’t allowed to be unreasonable about it. When a court finds the delay or denial had no reasonable basis, Colorado law awards twice the covered benefit plus your attorney fees and costs on top of what the policy owed. That’s why a carrier’s opening offer of $0 can become a $900,000 settlement once a lawyer is in the file.
You can also file a complaint with the Colorado Division of Insurance. The Division can’t award you damages, but a regulator’s inquiry has a way of moving a file that’s been sitting.
Besides this, the economics run your way. We take UM/UIM cases on contingency, and the insurer knows what an unreasonable denial costs. How that case gets built is the subject of our insurance bad faith page.
Your lawyer
Nelson Waneka
Nelson has handled uninsured and underinsured motorist claims across Colorado since 2010 — in front of Garfield County juries, at the Colorado Court of Appeals, and in the arbitrations and negotiation rooms where UM/UIM claims actually resolve. Best Lawyers has named him “Lawyer of the Year” for Insurance Law twice. Insurers recognize his name on the pleadings. That matters more than it should. And he’s spent his whole career on one side of the table: the policyholder’s.
Best Lawyers “Lawyer of the Year,” Insurance Law (2×) · Chambers USA ranked · Colorado Super Lawyers Top 100
Based in Glenwood Springs. Serving the Western Slope: Aspen · Vail · Grand Junction · Montrose · Basalt — mountain-town claims handled by a mountain-town firm, not a Denver satellite.
From our clients
“Nelson Waneka was my lawyer years ago when I got hit by another car and while the other driver had insurance, it wasn’t nearly enough to pay for my spinal fusion. Nelson took on my case and negotiated a fair price for my surgery and without him I would have been saddled with a debt I’d still be paying off.”
Google review · Jeremiah Jones
Your policy made a promise. We make them keep it.
No fee unless we recover