UM exclusion violates public policy
In Morris v. America First Insurance Company, 2010 OK 35, the Oklahoma Supreme Court in answering a question certified from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, found that a UM exclusion violated Oklahoma public policy. Specifically, the court found that an exclusion which precludes UM coverage for bodily injury sustained by a resident family member, who is otherwise insured by such policy, violates public policy and is void insofar as it requires separate UM coverage on a specific vehicle even though the owner is otherwise covered by the UM provisions of a liability policy he purchased on another vehicle. Morris was injured by an underinsured motorist while in his semi-truck. Morris did not have UM on the truck, but did have UM on his personal auto. In addition, Morris qualified as an insured on his mother’s policy because he was residing with his mother when the accident happened. The court said that the mother’s insurer could not exclude Morris from coverage simply because the policy covering the truck involved in the accident did not have UM coverage where Morris had other UM coverage available to him.
The court states:
To now say that an insurance company may exclude UM coverage from a resident insured because a specific vehicle, Mr. Morris's Freightliner semi, did not include UM coverage in its specific policy, violates the line of cases holding that UM coverage follows the person, not the vehicle. Mr. Morris was entitled to rely on this Court's previous holdings in his decision to include UM coverage for his automobiles but not to purchase a separate UM policy for his semi.
