Choice of Law and UM coverage
When an Oklahoma resident is injured in Oklahoma by an uninsured motorist, you might expect Oklahoma law to apply. But not if the UM policy was issued or delivered in another state on a vehicle registered or principally garaged in another state. In Bernal v. Charter County Mutual Insurance Co., the Oklahoma Supreme Court said that Oklahoma's UM statute only applies to vehicles registered in or principally garaged in Oklahoma. Thus, even though the accident occurred in Oklahoma, and the insured was from Oklahoma, Texas law would apply because that was where the vehicle was registered. Since Oklahoma law does not apply, there was no need to do a choice of law analysis -- and really, who wants to do that?
The court says that Oklahoma's statute applies solely to cars registered or garaged in Oklahoma. It then concludes that this a legislative mandate to use the law of the state of the policy or where the car is garaged and/or registered.
There is no discussion as to whether there is any choice of law provision in the policy, and whether that would make any difference. Certainly, under Oklahoma (and most other states laws), the parties may choose to be governed by a specific state's laws. Whether and to what extent this may affect other types of insurance is not yet known.
