Opinion ID: 1415585
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Beeler Case

Text: On July 16, 1987, Nationwide issued an automobile liability policy to Debra M. Anderson, the mother of Diedra M. Beeler. Ms. Beeler was first added as a named insured to her mother's insurance policy on June 5, 1998. [5] The initial terms of the policy issued to Mrs. Anderson provided for $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence of bodily injury liability coverage; the same limits of uninsured motorist coverage; and $50,000 per person/$100,000 per occurrence of underinsured motorist coverage. These coverages remained in effect until July 23, 1990, when Mrs. Anderson either reduced or eliminated her insurance coverage. At such time, she chose to carry $20,000 per person/$40,000 per occurrence of bodily liability coverage and the same limits of uninsured motorist coverage. Another change effected pursuant to Mrs. Anderson's request was the removal of the optional underinsured motorist coverage from her policy. In December 1990, Mrs. Anderson decided to increase her bodily injury liability to $50,000 per person/$100,000 per occurrence. [6] With this change, she maintained her uninsured motorist coverage at $20,000 per person/$40,000 per occurrence and again waived underinsured motorist coverage. By the time Ms. Beeler was involved in an accident on June 9, 2001, her mother had increased the bodily injury liability coverage to $100,000 per person/$300,000 per occurrence. While Mrs. Anderson continued to maintain the statutorily required amount of uninsurance, [7] there was no underinsurance coverage in effect at the time of Ms. Beeler's accident. In response to Nationwide's denial of her claim for underinsured motorist benefits, Ms. Beeler initiated a civil action in state court against Nationwide, as well as the driver of the vehicle involved in her accident, and one of the two policy owners. Nationwide removed that proceeding to federal court and the Honorable Joseph R. Goodwin determined that the following question must be addressed by this Court before it can consider the ultimate issue of whether the mass mailing Nationwide distributed to its insureds in 1999 constituted a commercially reasonable offer of underinsured motorist coverage: [8] 1. Does the phrase requests different coverage limits in West Virginia Code § 33-6-31d(e) encompass the addition of comprehensive and collision coverage to an existing automobile policy, such that an insurer is required to make a new offer of underinsured motorist coverage pursuant to that statute? By separate orders entered on May 21, 2003, this Court accepted these two cases involving certified questions from the federal district court. We proceed to consider and answer these questions to aid the federal court with its resolution of the ultimate issue presented by both of these cases.