5.12 Uninsured Motorists

• Library: Virginia Law and Practice: A Handbook for Attorneys (Virginia CLE) (2020 Ed.)

5.12 UNINSURED MOTORISTS

5.1201 Insurance Contracts. Generally, the law of the place where an insurance contract is written and delivered controls issues as to its coverage. ⁶⁶

5.1202 Uninsured Motorists. The law of the commonwealth is applied to determine whether the proof-of-contact requirement in West Virginia's uninsured motorist statute is a matter of tort or contract. ⁶⁷

West Virginia's statutory proof-of-contact requirement for uninsured motorist coverage is a contractual provision imposed by statute and adopted as a method of protecting uninsured motorists' insurers against their insureds' fraudulent uninsured motorist claims. In Buchanan v. Doe, ⁶⁸ since the plaintiff's uninsured motorist policy was issued and...