The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) ruled in favor of the insurer in deciphering the policy's UIM coverage. Kohatsu v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 2017 Haw. App. LEXIS 388 (Sept. 29, 2017).
The insureds were in an automobile accident, which resulted in a $300,000 settlement with the other driver's insurance company. The insureds requested UIM coverage from their insurer, State Farm, for the remaining damages from the accident. The parties entered arbitration and an Arbitration Award of $2,304,652.12 was granted in the insureds' favor.
The parties disputed the amount of coverage available under the policy and the insureds sued State Farm. In cross motions for summary judgment, the insureds argued that each policy for their four vehicles provided stacked UIM coverage of $400,000. Thus, the four policies together provided stacked UIM coverage totaling $1.6 million. State Farm argued that each policy for the four vehicles provided $100,000 in UIM coverage and the four policies together provided stacked UIM coverage totaling $400,000. The circuit court granted partial summary judgment in favor of State Farm. Judgment was entered on the UIM coverage issue and an appeal was filed.
The Declarations Page for the Mercury Tracer, the car involved in the accident, provided a stacking option for UIM coverage with limits of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. Renewal documents for the other three vehicles owned by the insureds also provided stacked UIM coverage for each vehicle in the amount of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident.
The policy offered Non-Stacking Coverage or Stacking Coverage. Non-Stacking Coverage was defined as the limits carried on one vehicle. The Stacking Coverage, which was a more expensive option, consisted of the total of the limits on all the vehicles insured. The parties agreed that the insureds had four vehicles under four separate policies, and that they elected the UIM stacking option for each offer of UIM coverage.
An example of stacking was given in the policy. When two vehicles were insured under two separate policies, a UIM limit of $50,000/$100,000 would result in double limits, i.e., $100,000/$200,000 of stacked UIM benefits. Therefore, the per person UIM coverage limit of $100,000 multiplies by four vehicles resulted in a total of $400,000 of stacked UIM coverage for the claim at issue. The circuit court's judgment was affirmed.
Thanks to my Damon Key colleague, Mark Murakami [www.hawaiioceanlaw.com], for flagging this case.
