Safeway Insurance Co. v Hadary

In an action arising from an automobile accident between a vehicle owned by defendants and insured by plaintiff with a policy including underinsured motorist coverage, and a vehicle rented by a driver who declined to purchase supplemental insurance from the rental company and relied on his own insurance, which provided the minimum coverage required by Illinois law, the trial court erred in entering partial summary judgment for plaintiff and concluding that plaintiff was not required to pay pursuant to the underinsured motorist clause of its policy after defendants collected the limits under the renter’s policy until the car rental company had exhausted the limits of the financial responsibility statute applicable to such companies, since allowing the car rental company’s liability under the financial responsibility statute to be triggered before the underinsured motorist coverage in the policy issued by plaintiff and paid for by defendants came into play would result in a situation where the insureds would receive more benefits in the fortuitous event of being injured by a rental car than a car not owned by a rental company, something the legislature could not have intended.