Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage in Texas

Fact-checked against primary sources October 3, 2026

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, often shortened to UM and UIM, sits inside your own auto policy and comes into play when the vehicle that caused the harm has no liability insurance or too little of it. Texas law requires every auto liability policy to include it unless a named insured turns it down in writing. The rules are in Subchapter C of Chapter 1952 of the Insurance Code, and this guide walks through them section by section.

What the coverage protects against

Insurance Code section 1952.101(a) describes the coverage as protection for insureds "who are legally entitled to recover" from the owners or operators of uninsured or underinsured motor vehicles. The harms it lists are "bodily injury, sickness, disease, or death, or property damage" arising from the ownership, maintenance or use of any motor vehicle. The limits must be at least those prescribed by Chapter 601 of the Transportation Code.

Two parts of that sentence carry most of the weight. "Legally entitled to recover" ties the coverage to what the law would let you collect from the other driver. How Texas divides fault between drivers, and how a fault share cuts a recovery, is explained in the guide to proportionate responsibility. And the list of harms runs from bodily injury and death to property damage; section 1952.105 sets separate offering rules for each.

Included unless rejected in writing

Under section 1952.101(b), an insurer may not deliver or issue an auto liability policy in Texas, including one placed through the Texas Automobile Insurance Plan Association, unless it provides UM and UIM coverage "in the policy or supplemental to the policy."

The statute's only stated exception is a written rejection. Section 1952.101(c) states that the coverage "does not apply if any insured named in the insurance policy rejects the coverage in writing." Three details in that subsection matter:

The rejection has to be in writing.
Any one insured named in the policy can make the rejection.
Once the named insured has rejected the coverage, the insurer does not have to add it back on a renewal or reinstated policy from the same insurer or an affiliated insurer, unless the named insured asks for it in writing.

Read together, subsections (b) and (c) mean that a Texas auto liability policy without this coverage traces back to a written rejection, which may have been made on an earlier policy with the same or an affiliated insurer.

The definitions that decide whether coverage applies

Uninsured motor vehicle: Section 1952.102(a) does not write out a full definition. It says the term, "subject to the terms of the coverage," includes an insured vehicle whose liability insurer cannot pay "because of insolvency." Section 1952.102(b) lets the commissioner allow or adopt policy-form definitions that exclude certain vehicles whose operators are in fact uninsured, so the wording of the policy form matters.
Underinsured motor vehicle: Under section 1952.103, an insured vehicle whose collectible liability limits "were originally lower than, or have been reduced by payment of claims arising from the same accident to, an amount less than the limit of liability stated in the underinsured coverage of the insured's policy." The comparison is between the other driver's liability limits and your own UIM limit.; Two routes lead to that result under the statute's wording. In the first, the other vehicle's liability limit was lower than your UIM limit from the start. In the second, the other vehicle's limit began at or above your UIM limit, but payments on other claims from the same accident (say, to other people hurt in the crash) have used up enough of it to leave less than your UIM limit. If the other vehicle's collectible limit is still at or above your UIM limit, the definition is not met.
Unknown driver: For a hit-and-run where the owner or operator is unknown, section 1952.104(3) requires the policy to say that "actual physical contact must have occurred" between the unknown vehicle and the insured person or the insured's property.

Limits, deductibles and how UIM is measured

Section 1952.105 controls the limits an insurer must offer. Bodily injury limits are offered in the amounts the insured wants, but not higher than the bodily injury liability limits in the same policy. Property damage coverage is offered "Subject to a deductible amount of $250," again capped at the policy's property damage liability limits. Neither may be offered below the Chapter 601 minimums. Section 1952.104 adds that the total limit for one person from one occurrence cannot exceed the stated limit no matter how many vehicles, policies or claims are involved, that the total paid to all claimants together cannot exceed the per-occurrence limit, and that the coverage excludes damages from the insured's own intentional acts.

Underinsured coverage is measured by subtraction. Section 1952.106 says it pays "all amounts that the insured is legally entitled to recover as damages" from the underinsured driver, up to the policy's UIM limit, "reduced by the amount recovered or recoverable from the insurer of the underinsured motor vehicle." The phrase reaches amounts "recoverable," not only amounts already paid.

Collision coverage and UM property damage together

A policy can carry both collision coverage and UM property damage coverage. Section 1952.107 sets out how they interact:

The insured may recover under whichever of the two the insured chooses.
If neither is enough on its own, the insured may use both, naming one as primary and paying that coverage's deductible. The primary coverage is used up first.
The second deductible is not charged if it is the same as or lower than the first. If it is higher, the insured pays only the difference.
Recovery from both together cannot exceed the actual damages suffered.

How a claim against your own insurer proceeds

A UM or UIM claim is made against your own insurer, not the other driver's, and subchapter C supplies only a few procedural rules for it. It sets no reporting deadline and no claim-filing steps of its own. What it does say:

Who proves the vehicle was uninsured. Section 1952.109 states: "The insurer has the burden of proof in a dispute as to whether a motor vehicle is uninsured."
Where a lawsuit can be filed. Under section 1952.110, a suit against the insurer over this coverage may be brought only in the county where the policyholder or beneficiary lived at the time of the accident, or the county where the accident occurred. The section opens with "Notwithstanding Section 15.032, Civil Practice and Remedies Code," so these two counties are the only choices even where that general venue section would otherwise point somewhere else.
What the insurer can recover afterward. An insurer that pays under this coverage is subject to the terms of that coverage and is entitled, to the extent of its payment, to the proceeds of any settlement or judgment the person it paid obtains against the person legally responsible for the bodily injury, sickness, disease, or death (1952.108(a)). If the payment was made because another insurer is insolvent, the paying insurer may proceed directly against the insolvent insurer or its receiver, subject to Chapter 462, and the insolvent insurer's own policyholder receives credit for that payment against any judgment entered against them (1952.108(b)).

The prompt payment law also applies to first-party claims such as this one. Insurance Code section 542.051(2) limits that law to first-party claims: ones you make as an insured or policyholder, or as a named beneficiary, where your insurer pays you directly. The deadlines that law sets for acknowledging, deciding and paying first-party claims, and the remedy for missing them, are in the guide to how fast Texas insurers must handle a claim.

How UM and UIM fit into the larger claim

The injury and accident settlements hub lays out the whole sequence of an injury claim, and the guide to how a car accident claim works covers the steps from the crash report to a demand. Filing deadlines for any lawsuit are covered separately in the deadline to sue guide. Guides on mediation, small claims and other disputes are in the full guide library.