When the Insured's Shoes Are Bigger Than the Tortfeasor's Shoes

AUTO – SUM COVERAGE – TRIGGER

Gross v. Travelers Ins.
(4th Dept., 7/24/2020)

Gross had an auto policy with Travelers that was written to afford BI and SUM coverage of $300,000 per person and $300,000 per accident.  He and his wife were injured when their vehicle was rear-ended by a vehicle operated by a nonparty tortfeasor, who was insured by The Hartford under a policy affording BI coverage with limits of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident.

In other words, the comparative BI coverage limits were:

                                Insured                                         Tortfeasor
Per person               $300,000                                      $100,000
Per accident            $300,000                                       $300,000

Gross settled his underlying personal injury claim for the tortfeasor's $100,000 per person policy limit, and his wife settled her claim for $16,000. Gross submitted a SUM claim to Travelers, which denied it on the ground that plaintiff's SUM coverage was not triggered because the tortfeasor's $300,000 in per accident BI coverage was not less than Gross's $300,000 in per accident BI coverage. Supreme Court agreed, and granted Travelers' motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1) on that ground.  Gross appealed and the Fourth Department REVERSED, holding:

"Insurance Law § 3420(f)(2) was enacted to allow an insured to obtain the same level of protection for himself [or herself] and his [or her] passengers which he [or she] purchased to protect himself [or herself] against liability to others'" (Matter of Prudential Prop. & Cas. Co. v Szeli, 83 NY2d 681, 686 [1994], quoting Mem of St Exec Dept, 1977 McKinney's Session Laws of NY at 2446). It is well settled that, "[u]nder Insurance Law § 3420(f)(2), an insured's [SUM] coverage is triggered when the limit of the insured's bodily injury liability coverage is greater than the same coverage in the tortfeasor's policy" (id. at 684). More particularly, when determining whether SUM coverage is triggered, "[t]he necessary analytical step . . . is to place the insured in the shoes of the tortfeasor and ask whether the insured would have greater bodily injury coverage under the circumstances than the tortfeasor actually has" (id. at 687), which "requires a comparison of each policy's bodily injury liability coverage as it in fact operates under the policy terms applicable to that particular coverage" (id. at 688).  

Here, a comparison of the two policies at issue, in light of the circumstances of this case, demonstrates that plaintiff would be afforded greater coverage under his policy than under the tortfeasor's policy. The tortfeasor's policy would have provided plaintiff with only $100,000 of coverage for bodily injury, whereas plaintiff's policy would have provided him with up to $300,000 of coverage for bodily injury. Although plaintiff's SUM benefits would be reduced by the amount paid to his wife under the policy's $300,000 per accident maximum, he is still afforded more coverage under his policy than under the tortfeasor's policy because the bodily injury limit for an accident in which two people are injured would be $200,000 under the tortfeasor's policy, which is less than the coverage afforded by plaintiff's policy. Consequently, the SUM provision of plaintiff's policy was triggered (see Insurance Law § 3420[f][2][A]; Matter of Government Empls. Ins. Co. v Lee, 120 AD3d 497, 498-499 [2d Dept 2014]; Jones v Peerless Ins. Co., 281 AD2d 888, 889 [4th Dept 2001]).

Okay, you SUM savants.  What's the dispositive difference between the comparative coverage limits in this case and the comparative coverage limits in the seminal, controlling case of Prudential Prop. and Cas. Co. v. Szeli?  Hint: it has to do with swapping the headings in the above table.