eBook details
- Title: Montano v. Allstate Indemnity Co.
- Author : Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
- Release Date : January 20, 2004
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 72 KB
Description
1 In this case we are required, once again, to determine whether an insurance company effectively precluded its insured from stacking the policy limits of all of his vehicles insured under the policy for his uninsured motorist ("UM") claim. Although we have reviewed several such attempts by the insurance industry in the past, each case has presented a new wrinkle. Yet, this Court has never upheld an anti-stacking clause in UM policies because in each case we found either an ambiguity in the policy or the payment of multiple premiums. We have done so in order to protect the reasonable expectations of the insured and because the insured should only get what he or she pays for. In this case we decline Plaintiffs invitation to declare all anti-stacking provisions void as against public policy. However, to further the important principles previously described, and influenced by NMSA 1978, § 66-5-301(A) and (C) (1983), we modify Rodriguez v. Windsor Insurance Co., 118 N.M. 127, 879 P.2d 759 (1994) and Lopez v. Foundation Reserve Insurance Co., 98 N.M. 166, 646 P.2d 1230 (1982), and hold that insurance companies must obtain written rejections of stacking in order to limit their liability. Such a modification to our judicially-created stacking doctrine will ensure that the insureds reasonable expectations are met and that an insured gets what he or she pays for and no more. Such a change should also, we hope, end the seemingly constant litigation in this area of law. Because, however, we recognize that this represents a new direction in our stacking jurisprudence, we will resolve the stacking question in this case under Rodriguez, which we read to require a plain and affirmative declaration that the amount charged represents a single premium for a single amount of coverage. This policy lacks such a declaration, and in the absence of such a declaration, Plaintiff is entitled to stack all four coverages.