Jackson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance

400 S.E.2d 492, 303 S.C. 321, 1991 S.C. LEXIS 14
CourtSupreme Court of South Carolina
DecidedJanuary 21, 1991
Docket23317
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 400 S.E.2d 492 (Jackson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jackson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, 400 S.E.2d 492, 303 S.C. 321, 1991 S.C. LEXIS 14 (S.C. 1991).

Opinion

Harwell, Justice:

This case involves the issue of whether the insurer failed to make a meaningful offer of underinsured coverage to the insured such that the insured is entitled to a reformation of her automobile policies to include such coverage. The trial judge denied reformation as to all four policies. The Court of Appeals reversed the order of the trial judge finding that the insurer had failed to prove that a meaningful offer of underinsured coverage had been made and remanded the case to the trial judge to reform one of the policies to afford underinsured motorist coverage up to the limits of the insured’s liability coverage. Jackson v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.,_S.C. _, 392 S.E. (2d) 472 (Ct. App. 1990). We granted writ of certiorari to review the Court of Appeals’ decision in this matter as it failed to address whether the insured was entitled to have the remaining three policies reformed to include under-insured motorist coverage as well.

I. FACTS

Petitioner Andrea Michelle Jackson was seriously injured on May 11,1985, when the car she was driving was hit by another car. At the time of the collision, petitioner and her husband owned four vehicles insured by respondent State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company: a 1977 Dodgé Diplomat that petitioner was driving at the time of the accident, a 1971 Dat-sun, a 1947 Chevrolet truck, and a 1972 Chevrolet truck. All of the vehicles except the 1972 Chevrolet truck had bodily injury liability limits of $25,000.00 per individual, $50,000.00 per occurrence, and $25,000.00 property damage. The 1972 Chevrolet truck had bodily injury liability limits of $50,000.00 per individ *323 ual, $100,000.00 per occurrence, and $50,000.00 property damage. No underinsured motorist coverage was included on any of the policies at the time of the collision.

Subsequent to the collision, petitioner obtained a $25,000.00 tender of settlement from the at-fault driver. This amount represented the available liability limit of the at-fault driver’s insurance policy. Because petitioner’s injuries exceeded this amount, she then made a claim for underinsured motorist coverage with State Farm. State Farm denied coverage on the ground that petitioner had rejected its offers of underinsured motorist coverage. Petitioner then filed an action against State Farm seeking reformation of the insurance policies with State Farm to include underinsured motorist coverage. As the basis of petitioner’s request for relief, she-alleged that State Farm had failed to comply with S.C. Code Ann. § 56-9-831 (Supp. 1986) 1 which requires automobile insurance carriers to offer its insureds optional underinsured motorist coverage up to the limits of liability coverage. The trial court denied reformation finding that State Farm had made meáningful offers of underinsured motorist coverage under the test set forth in State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v.. Wannamaker, 291 S.C. 518, 354 S.E. (2d) 555 (1987). Petitioner appealed the order of the trial judge to the Court of Appeals; ' -

The Court of Appeals reversed the order of the trial judge finding that State Farm had not made a meaningful offer of un-derinsured coverage as to the 1971 Datsun and remanded the-case to the trial judge to reform this specific policy to afford underinsured motorist coverage up to the limits of petitioner’s liability coverage on that vehicle. The Court of Appeals failed, however, to address the issue of whether State Farm- made a meaningful offer of underinsured motorist coverage on the other three vehicles, the 1977 Dodge Diplomat, the 1947 Chevrolet Truck, ánd the 1972 Chevrolet truck, We granted .petitioner’s petition for writ of certiorari on this issue.

II. DISCUSSION

S.C. Code Ann. § 56-9-831 (Supp. 1986) provides that insurance carriers must make an offer of underinsured motorist *324 coverage to its insureds up to the limits of the insureds’ liability coverage. In State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Wannamaker, 291 S.C. 518,354 S.E. (2d) 555 (1987), this Court had the opportunity to interpret Section 56-9-831. In Wannamaker, we determined that the legislature, through the enactment of Section 56-9-831, required that the insured have the option of accepting or rejecting an effective offer of underinsured coverage up to the limits of the insured’s liability coverage. We interpreted Section 56-9-831 as mandating that the insured be provided with adequate information, and in such manner, as to allow the insured to make an intelligent decision of whether to accept or reject the coverage. In Wannamaker, we adopted a four part test to determine whether an insurer has complied with its duty to offer optional coverages: (1) the insurer’s notification process must be commercially reasonable, whether oral or in writing; (2) the insurer must specify the limits of optional coverage and not merely offer additional coverage in general terms; (3) the insurer must intelligibly advise the insured of the nature of the optional coverage; and (4) the insured must be told that optional coverages are available for an additional premium. Additionally, we placed on the insurer, the initial burden of proving that a meaningful offer of optional coverage had been made to the insured. See Knight v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 297 S.C. 20, 374 S.E. (2d) 520 (Ct. App. 1988).

In Dewart v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 296 S.C. 150, 370 S.E. (2d) 915 (Ct. App. 1988), the Court of Appeals was faced with the issue of whether the insurer’s two-part offer of underinsured motorist coverage, consisting of a premium notice and an insert, constituted a meaningful offer of underin-sured motorist coverage under Wannamaker. The Dewart court found that the insurer had failed to provide the insured with a meaningful offer because the premium notice: (1) did not explain underinsured motorist coverage; (2) did not use the words “underinsured motorist” or “underinsured motor vehicle” and only referred to “coverage W” without explaining what it was; and (3) did not direct the insured to read the critical information regarding underinsured motorist coverage contained in the insert. The Dewart court reasoned that placing critical information in two documents, without including anything on the premium renewal notice alerting the insured to read the insert, was not a method reasonably calculated to *325 draw the insured’s attention to the nature of the offer. The Court of Appeals concluded that, although the insurer’s offer satisfied three of the four prongs of the Wannamaker test, the deficient premium renewal notice failed to comport with the third prong of the test which requires the insurer to intelligibly advise the insured of the nature of optional coverage.

Once again in this case, the Court of Appeals was faced with whether State Farm had made a meaningful offer of underin-sured motorist coverage to petitioner as to her four vehicles: a 1971 Datsun, a 1977 Dodge Diplomat, a 1947 Chevrolet truck, and a 1972 Chevrolet truck.

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Bluebook (online)
400 S.E.2d 492, 303 S.C. 321, 1991 S.C. LEXIS 14, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jackson-v-state-farm-mutual-automobile-insurance-sc-1991.