Court Opinion

ID: 9709238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:43:28.459838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:47.162428
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LYTTON, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. I believe that Mulholland v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. (1988), 171 Ill. App. 3d 600, 527 N.E.2d 29, applies here, but only as it pertains to arbitration. The language of the statute is both clear and unambiguous. It provides: "A policy which provides underinsured motor vehicle coverage may include a clause which denies payment until the limits of liability under all bodily injury liability insurance policies applicable to the underinsured motor vehicle and its operators have been exhausted by payment of judgement or settlement.” (215 ILCS 5/143a — 2(7) (West 1992).) The statute prohibits payment until after a liability policy’s limits are exhausted. It does not preclude arbitration. The legislature could easily have included arbitration in the amendment but chose to limit its scope to the denial of payment. The insurance policy itself expressly provides for arbitration in underinsured motorist claims. Like the statute, the policy’s exhaustion clause does not forbid arbitration, only payment. Thus, although the parties may proceed to arbitration under both the statute and the policy, the plaintiff may not force payment of an award until statutory requirements of exhaustion are met. See 215 ILCS 5/143a— 2(7) (West 1992). I would affirm the trial court’s order allowing arbitration, but modify it to disallow the payment of any award which may be entered.