(A) No automobile insurance policy or contract may be issued or delivered unless it contains a provision by endorsement or otherwise, herein referred to as the uninsured motorist provision, undertaking to pay the insured all sums which he is legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle, within limits which may be no less than the requirements of Section 38-77-140. The uninsured motorist provision also must provide for no less than twenty-five thousand dollars' coverage for injury to or destruction of the property of the insured in any one accident but may provide an exclusion of the first two hundred dollars of the loss or damage. The director or his designee may prescribe the form to be used in providing uninsured motorist coverage and when prescribed and promulgated no other form may be used.
(B) No action may be brought under the uninsured motorist provision unless copies of the pleadings in the action establishing liability are served in the manner provided by law upon the insurer writing the uninsured motorist provision. The insurer has the right to appear and defend in the name of the uninsured motorist in any action which may affect its liability and has thirty days after service of process on it in which to appear. The evidence of service upon the insurer may not be made a part of the record.
(C) Benefits paid pursuant to this section are subject to subrogation and assignment if an uninsured motorist has selected the option to be uninsured by paying the fee pursuant to Section 56-10-510.
HISTORY: Former 1976 Code Section 56-9-830 [1962 Code Section 46-750.33; 1963 (53) 526; 1971 (57) 854; 1974 (58) 2718] recodified as Section 38-77-150 by 1987 Act No. 155, Section 1; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 807; 1997 Act No. 154, Section 13; 2013 Act No. 47, Section 1, eff January 1, 2014.
Editor's Note
2013 Act No. 47, Section 5, provides as follows:
"SECTION 5. An automobile liability insurer is not required to make a new offer of coverage or obtain a new prescribed form on any automobile insurance policy, within the contemplation of Section 38-77-350, to comply with statutory changes to the minimum required limits set forth in Section 38-77-140 and Section 38-77-150."