Attorney Michael Rehm - (916) 233-7346
When a driver with no insurance — or inadequate insurance — causes an accident in Sacramento, the at-fault party's policy offers little or no protection. The claim that follows is not against the other driver's carrier. It is against your own.
Attorney Michael Rehm represents those injured at uninsured and underinsured motorist arbitrations throughout Sacramento County.
Sacramento's Road Safety Record
Sacramento's crash data puts the problem in concrete terms. According to the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), Sacramento ranked first among California's fifteen largest cities for alcohol-involved crash victims in 2023, with 454 people killed or injured in those collisions alone. Sacramento ranked second among those same cities for total fatal and severe injury crash victims, with 4,214 recorded. Drivers involved in alcohol-related and high-severity crashes are among the least likely to carry adequate liability insurance.
The practical result is that a significant number of injury accidents on Sacramento streets — on Interstate 5, on Highway 50, at the intersections along Florin Road, on the Broadway corridor, on Stockton Boulevard — involve a driver whose policy will not come close to covering what the injured person has lost.
What UM and UIM Coverage Does
Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage applies when the at-fault driver carries no bodily injury liability insurance, or when their insurer denies or conditionally admits coverage. Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage applies when the at-fault driver is insured, but their limits are lower than your own UIM limits — and the gap between those limits is what your carrier owes you.
In both cases, you are making a first-party claim against your own insurance company, not a third-party claim against the driver who hurt you. That distinction matters. Your insurer owes you a duty of good faith and fair dealing. The UM/UIM process has its own procedural rules, its own statute of limitations, and its own arbitration mechanism. It does not operate like a standard tort claim.
For a full analysis of the legal framework — coverage rules, who qualifies as an insured, the consent requirement, the workers' compensation offset, and how UIM benefits are calculated — see the California Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist page.
How Sacramento UM/UIM Cases Proceed
When you and your insurer cannot agree on liability or damages, the dispute goes to binding arbitration under Insurance Code § 11580.2. That arbitration is not filed in Sacramento Superior Court in the traditional sense — it is a private proceeding. However, if the insurer refuses to arbitrate, or the parties cannot agree on an arbitrator, a petition to compel arbitration is filed at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse, located at 720 Ninth Street in Sacramento.
Sacramento County Superior Court Local Rule 2.49 governs uninsured motorist arbitration cases filed in Sacramento. That local rule controls timing and procedural requirements once a petition is before the court. If a discovery dispute arises during the arbitration — because the arbitrator has no power to resolve discovery disputes — that dispute is also brought before a Sacramento Superior Court judge.
What to Expect From Your Insurer
A UM or UIM claim is a claim against your own carrier, and insurers treat those claims with the same skepticism they apply to any claim that costs them money. In practice, that means an investigation — often including requests for medical records and authorizations, a defense medical examination, wage-loss documentation, and recorded statements. Under Insurance Code § 11580.2(o), you are required to provide wage-loss information and medical authorizations within fifteen days of the insurer's request.
Insurers in UM/UIM cases routinely contest liability, causation, and the value of the claim. They also exploit the procedural gaps in the Uninsured Motorist Law — which was written before the modern discovery statutes and leaves many procedural questions unanswered — to delay and frustrate the arbitration process. Selecting an arbitrator, setting an arbitration date, and completing discovery all become pressure points that an insurer with no financial incentive to move quickly will use to its advantage.
Understanding that dynamic before the claim is filed is part of building a case that does not get stalled.
When Your Insurer Acts in Bad Faith
Implicit in every California insurance policy is a duty of good faith and fair dealing. An insurer that unreasonably delays payment, fails to investigate, or refuses to honor a covered claim does not merely breach the contract — it may be liable in tort. Consequential economic losses, emotional distress, and punitive damages are all potentially recoverable in a bad faith action. The attorney fees you incur to compel payment of benefits you are owed are themselves compensatory damages — not just costs — under California law. See Gruenberg v. Aetna Ins. Co. (1973) 9 Cal.3d 566, available at Justia.
A bad faith action against your insurer is separate from the UM/UIM arbitration. For a fuller discussion of how bad faith claims work in the UM/UIM context, see the California Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist page.
Statute of Limitations
A UM claim in California is subject to a two-year statute of limitations from the date of the accident. See Insurance Code § 11580.2. A petition to compel arbitration must be filed within four years of the date a party refuses to arbitrate — but arbitration can also be waived by unreasonable delay in making the initial demand. Do not wait. Both clocks are running from the date of the accident, and the procedural steps required before arbitration can begin take time.
Talk to an Attorney
Attorney Michael Rehm handles uninsured and underinsured motorist cases throughout Sacramento County on a contingency fee basis. No fee without a recovery. Call (916) 233-7346.
Resources:
Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer
California Uninsured/UnderInsured Motorist Arbitration Hearing Lawyer