Recently, in Huggins v. Progressive Advanced Ins. Co., 2026 PA Super 130 (June 18, 2026), the Superior Court of Pennsylvania was presented with the issue of whether an insured who only has one policy with an insurer can knowingly reject underinsured motorist (“UIM “) coverage if the rejection form fails to include the relevant policy number.
In Huggins the claimant obtained motorcycle insurance from Progressive and executed a UIM protection waiver. The claimant did not have any other insurance policies with Progressive. After sustaining injuries in a motor vehicle accident, the claimant contended that he should be entitled to UIM benefits equal to his liability benefits because the subject UIM rejection form did not include the relevant policy number. Specifically, the claimant argued that the lack of inclusion of the subject policy number rendered the UIM protection waiver as noncompliant with section 1731 of the MVFRL and ambiguous. Moreover, the claimant argued that this matter was analogous to the issue in Donovan v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 667 Pa. 672, 675, 256 A.3d 1145, 1147 (2021) in that without a policy number the claimant cannot knowingly reject UIM coverage. The trial court granted Progressive’s Motion for Summary Judgement and dismissed with prejudice claimant’s declaratory judgment action against Progressive seeking underinsured benefits. The claimant appealed.
On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed, initially rejecting claimant’s analogy to Donovan. The Court explained that the decision in Donovan was inapplicable to the subject matter as the issue before the Court in Donovan was whether the use of the form provided in section 1738(d) of the MVFRL was a valid waiver of inter-policy stacking of UIM benefits. The Court in Donovan held that waiver is valid if the insured was provided the necessary information to knowingly reject stacked coverage. However, the Donovan Court found that the subject form provided in section 1738(d) of the MVFRL was deficient as to inter-policy stacking because it only referred to one policy which does not allow for knowing waiver of inter-policy stacking absent a single vehicle situation.
The Court in Huggins noted that the language requirements under section 1738 of the MVFRL do not apply to this matter but rather section 1731(c) applies. Specifically, the Court noted that section 1731(c) of the MVFRL does not require the insurer to include the policy number on the UIM coverage rejection form. Furthermore, the Court emphasized that the present issue includes waiver of coverage under a single policy, not waiver of inter-policy stacking which implicates more than one policy. The Court stated that there was no ambiguity caused by the lack of inclusion of the policy number on the rejection form as the claimant only had once policy with Progressive.
Thus, the Court held that an insured with a single policy from an insurer can knowingly reject UIM coverage under section 1731(c) and that rejection be considered valid even when the rejection form does not contain the policy number. The Trial Court’s decision was affirmed accordingly, and the claimant was not entitled to a declaratory judgement to obtain UIM benefits.
The Huggins decision can be found here.
For additional questions, please contact Molly Hecht and/or Glen Shikunov, Esq.
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