Dowell v. Safe Auto Insurance Co.

Relying principally upon a Webster’s dictionary definition to find a nonexistent ambiguity, the majority quietly buries decades of precedent that held that hit and run vehicles are covered under UM policies only if the policy itself clearly says so. Because I believe that the decision we reach today will upset the settled state of our UM jurisprudence, as well as the settled expectations of both insurers and insureds, I respectfully dissent.

Under our clear precedent, the UM statute does not mandate coverage for hit and *879run vehicles.1 Rather, UM coverage for hit and run vehicles is a matter of…