Can an Insurance Company Raise Your Rates For Making an Ohio Uninsured Motorist Claim?

An Ohio uninsured motorist claim can help pay for your damages when the at-fault driver has little or no liability insurance of their own.

This optional coverage protects Ohio drivers against the many thousands of motorists who carry no insurance at all—and the many more whose policy limits may not fully cover serious injuries or property damage after a crash.

With auto insurance premiums on the rise, UM/UIM coverage might seem like more of a luxury than a necessity. Drivers might also worry that filing an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim will result in a rate increase.

In Ohio, insurers are prohibited from raising rates based on a qualifying UM/UIM accident. This protection is part of state law, and if an insurer does illegally raise your rates, the company could face repercussions.

Ohio’s Growing Uninsured Driver Problem

There will always be drivers who break the state’s financial responsibility law and choose not to purchase auto insurance in state-mandated minimum amounts. But the number of uninsured drivers on the road has increased in recent years statewide and nationwide.

The Ohio Department of Insurance (ODI) estimates that as many as 15% of Ohio drivers do not carry auto insurance. According to the Insurance Information Institute, that number is 18.5%—the twelfth highest uninsured motorist rate in the country.

In other words, nearly 1 in 5 drivers on Ohio roads may lack insurance to pay for an accident. And the state warns that even more drivers are underinsured, meaning their policy limits are too low to fully cover an insured loss, which can shift the financial burden from the at-fault driver to the crash victim.

UM/UIM coverage steps in to pay for coverage gaps for insured drivers and their passengers when the at-fault driver’s insurance is nonexistent or inadequate.

With a typical annual cost of around $100 to $300, many drivers find this optional coverage to be well worth the extra cost—and the extra peace of mind—it provides, even as auto insurance bills continue their upward trend. Between 2020 and 2025, the average U.S. car insurance premium increased by nearly 30%.

These rate hikes could be causing more drivers to forego coverage altogether. For other drivers, rising premiums might result in them no longer paying for comprehensive “full coverage” policies that include minimum required coverages and add-ons like UM/UIM.

Ohio drivers who purchase UM/UIM coverage may face a different conundrum as well: whether to report an accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver to their insurance company due to fears of a further rate hike.

Common sense suggests that if you’re paying for these coverages, you should utilize them when they apply—and the law supports this decision. But many Ohio drivers are not aware of how auto insurance law works and why they are specifically protected from UM/UIM rate hikes.

Ohio’s Consumer Firewall: ORC 3937.23

Imagine you are driving when another car blows through a red light and hits you. Your neck is stiff, your car is damaged, and the at-fault driver has zero insurance.

You pay for UM/UIM coverage on your own policy for this exact reason. But thinking about your monthly premium and how much it has increased in recent years, you hesitate. You start doing some internal math:

“My insurance bill is already stretching my budget to the limit. If I file a claim with my own insurance company, aren’t they going to treat me like a high-risk driver and jack up my rates? Maybe I should just try to handle the medical bills myself…”

This sort of fear may cause an injured driver to consider a difficult—but in Ohio, unnecessary—financial trade-off: not reporting the accident to their insurer and simply paying out of pocket for the uncovered losses.

That concern is not entirely irrational. Insurance laws vary by state, and a not-at-fault accident or first-party claim may affect premiums in some parts of the country.

But not in Ohio.

Under Ohio Revised Code Section 3937.23, an auto insurance company cannot raise your premiums or penalize you financially for filing a qualifying accident claim involving an uninsured or underinsured motorist.

The statute serves as a consumer firewall, stating that no auto insurance company can increase the cost of a private passenger policy simply because you were involved in a crash with an uninsured or underinsured driver.

Like most consumer laws, however, this protection is not completely unconditional. The rate-hike ban applies when both of the following are true:

• You did not contribute to the crash or resulting loss: Your actions were not a “proximate cause” of any loss, damage, injury, or death arising from the accident. In plain English, you must not have legally contributed to the crash or the resulting harm.
• You did not commit a disqualifying violation: You were not convicted of, did not plead guilty to, and did not plead no contest to a violation of law resulting from the crash.

If you did not cause the wreck or any resulting loss and did not receive a disqualifying conviction or enter a guilty or no-contest plea, your insurance company cannot impose an individual rate penalty based on your UM/UIM accident.

Beware the “Comparative Fault” Trap

Since insurance companies look at claims through the lens of financial risk, adjusters pay very close attention to those two legal exceptions.

Any excuse to pin any portion of the blame on you—for example, by alleging that you failed to yield, were speeding, or had an opportunity to take evasive action—might be used to reclassify the incident as partially your fault.

A finding that your conduct legally contributed to the crash (or the harm it caused) could place the accident outside the protection of ORC 3937.23 and allow the insurer to legally hike your individual premium or strip away a valuable “claims-free” discount at your next six-month or 12-month renewal. It could also reduce the compensation available under Ohio’s comparative negligence rule.

How Can an Attorney Help with an Ohio Uninsured Motorist Claim?

You can challenge a suspected illegal rate hike by filing a complaint with the ODI. The state can investigate the insurer’s conduct and, if it finds a violation of ORC 3937.23, may pursue penalties or corrective action. The complaint process may also lead the insurer to recalculate your premium, credit your account, or refund improperly charged amounts.

ODI explicitly says, however, that it cannot act as your lawyer or give you legal advice.

You may want to consult a personal injury attorney about an accident with an uninsured or underinsured motorist when questions about coverage, fault, claim value, or rates remain unresolved. An attorney can help you:

• Identify Available Insurance: Investigate other potentially applicable policies, including coverage held by the vehicle’s owner, the driver’s employer, or household members.
• Manage the Claim: Document your medical losses, track contractual deadlines, and counter efforts to minimize your injuries or assign you partial fault.
• Evaluate a Personal Lawsuit: Determine whether the uninsured driver has sufficient income or assets to make a lawsuit worth pursuing.
• Enforce Your Policy: Negotiate your UM/UIM claim and, when necessary, take legal action to require your insurer to pay what it owes.

UM/UIM coverage protects you from financially irresponsible drivers, and Ohio law protects you from insurers that may attempt to illegally raise your rates. But just because those protections should apply automatically does not mean they always do.

When talking to the insurance company doesn’t help, you may need to talk to a car accident attorney at Graham Law.