Insurance is a contract between the insurer and the person insured.
Insurance companies sell to the insured the coverage requested: Carriers have no obligation to force, or even advise, the insured about the limits of liability of automobile liability insurance that should be carried by the insured. Rather, the insurer is obligated only to provide the insurance coverages ordered, as some insureds found out when they tried to convince a court to provide liability limits that were not ordered because they believed, as longtime customers, they should have been advised to carry higher limits.
|Case background
In 1984, while he was a captain in the U.S. Army, Charles Cohan purchased an automobile insurance policy from USAA with a $100,000 per-person liability limit. He maintained the policy with the same coverage limits through 2011. He married Lisa Cohan in 1995 and added her to the auto policy as an "operator." The Cohans never advised USAA that they should increase their automobile liability coverage.
In 2002, the Cohans purchased land and built a new home. On Dec. 6, 2002, they purchased homeowner's insurance from USAA with liability coverage in the amount of $1 million per occurrence.
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