Court Opinion

ID: 9526117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:12:35.585497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:18:26.777399
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: I agree with the majority that the insurer failed to make a proper offer of underinsured-motorist coverage to the plaintiff as required by section 143a — 2(3) of the Illinois Insurance Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 73, par. 755a—2(3)), and that the question of the manner in which the contract was reformed by the trial court has been waived. I believe, however, that the model offer of underinsured-motorist coverage proposed by the majority is incomplete. The model offer, taken from Orolin v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. (N.D. Ill. 1984), 585 F. Supp. 97, together with a schedule of the limits of the optional coverages and the premiums to be charged for those coverages, satisfies several of the tests for a proper offer set forth in Hastings v. United Pacific Insurance Co. (Minn. 1982), 318 N.W.2d 849. The model offer, however, does not make clear to the insured that the recovery available under the coverage is not based upon the limits of the underinsured-motorist coverage alone, but upon the difference between those limits and the amounts recovered from the legally responsible party’s insurance. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 73, par. 755a—2(3). A more complete explanation of the nature of the coverage would allow the insured an opportunity to make an informed decision with respect to whether the coverage should be accepted or rejected as offered, or whether the limits of the underlying bodily injury and uninsured-motorist coverages should be increased so that the limits of the underinsured-motorist coverage could be increased as well. APPENDIX [[Image here]]