THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL 24 | AUGUST 2026 Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. Liability coverage on the driver’s employer (if there is any way to place the driver within the course and scope of employment at the time of the MVA) Liability coverage on any other potentially liable party (for instance a highway maintenance company that helped to cause the occurrence of the wreck) The client’s UM coverage UM coverage on the car in which the client was an occupant (to include the employer’s UM coverage, if any, if the client was in a work vehicle at the time) UM coverage on any family members resident in the same household as the client In addition to all the above, Russell v. American States Ins. Co.15 suggests an unusual source for passenger UM coverage. In Russell, a passenger was killed in a wreck. The driver, unrelated to the deceased, was using someone else’s car at the time of the wreck. The family of the deceased passenger collected liability money from the carpolicy and from the driver’s policy and collected UM as a Class 1 insured (named insured or resident relative) from his dad’s policy (on a different car). This injury attorney is doing a very good job thus far – and it gets better. The owner of the car also had UM on the policy on the car and the driver (who was not the owner of the car) had UM on his own, separate policy with UM (in addition to the liability coverage). We would normally expect the policy on the car to provide UM for the passenger as a Class 2 insured (insured by virtue of “occupying” the insured car), which it did. More interesting, though, was the UM on the driver’s policy. Remember, the driver did not own the involved car and so his policy was on a noninvolved auto, such that the passenger would not be a typical class 2 “occupant” insured for purposes of that coverage. That policy, though, defined the insured vehicle to include any car “being operated by” the insured. The deceased passenger thus became a Class 2 insured by virtue of occupancy of an “insured vehicle.” Are your heads spinning yet? Again, very good lawyering produced a bountiful recovery. Roughly 50% of automobile policies contain this language. One should also always check for stacking UM limits on policies insuring multiple vehicles (though most policies will no longer stack under an amendment to the UM statute). Also, 1) never accept anything less than the liability limits if you have access to any UM and 2) always comply with the UM statute’s requirements for giving the UM carrier the option to “substitute” for the liability offer (and retain subrogation rights) or to instead waive subrogation and allow the insured to accept the liability money (which will require releasing the UM insurer’s subrogation rights). A failure in these two areas will prevent your client from recovering any UM (and may “buy” the attorney a malpractice claim). Hopefully the above has convinced you of our original thesis. Space constraints and the author’s knowledge base do not permit such in-depth study of the following practice areas so we will touch only briefly on some additional examples of the intersection of insurance law with a small sampling of other practice areas. WE MUST ALL UNDERSTAND OUR MALPRACTICE COVERAGE Before we turn to other practice areas, it will be useful to consider every attorney’s need to understand malpractice insurance. For one, the typical commercial Before we turn to other practice areas, it will be useful to consider every attorney’s need to understand malpractice insurance. For one, the typical commercial liability policy will not protect against “professional liability” – i.e., malpractice coverage.
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