Maryland's New Enhanced UIM Coverage: The Offset Trap — and the 2017 Law That Finally Fixes It
For decades, Maryland drivers have paid premiums for underinsured motorist coverage that, in the moment they needed it most, often paid them nothing at all. This year, the General Assembly finally fixed the trap — but only for drivers who know to ask. If you insure a car in Maryland, this may be the most practically important insurance change in a generation, and it lands on renewal notices starting this fall.
The offset trap, explained
Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage is supposed to protect you when the at-fault driver's insurance is too small for your injuries. Here is how Maryland's traditional version actually works: your UIM limit is reduced dollar-for-dollar by whatever the at-fault driver's insurer pays.
Run the numbers and the problem is obvious:
| Scenario (serious injury, $200,000+ in damages) | At-fault driver's liability payment | Your traditional UIM ($100,000 limit) pays | Total recovered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hit by an uninsured driver | $0 | $100,000 | $100,000 |
| Hit by a driver with $30,000 in coverage | $30,000 | $70,000 | $100,000 |
| Hit by a driver with $100,000 in coverage | $100,000 | $0 | $100,000 |
Look at the last row. You bought $100,000 of protection, paid premiums for years — and because the other driver happened to carry limits equal to yours, your own coverage contributes nothing. Marylanders seriously hurt by drivers with matching limits have discovered, again and again, that "underinsured" coverage treated them as fully compensated when they were anything but.
The fix: Enhanced UIM
In the 2017 session, the General Assembly passed legislation (Senate Bill 403 / House Bill 5) creating Enhanced Underinsured Motorist coverage — "EUIM" — codified at Md. Code, Insurance § 19-509.1. The concept is simple: under EUIM, your coverage stacks on top of the at-fault driver's liability payment instead of being offset by it.
Same crash, same $100,000 limits, with EUIM: the at-fault driver's insurer pays its $100,000, and your EUIM pays up to another $100,000 on top — up to $200,000 in total available coverage for the same premium structure that used to max out at half that.
The catch: you must choose it
EUIM is not automatic. The law requires insurers to offer it as an alternative to traditional UIM, and you must elect it in writing. The rollout works like this:
- Insurers must make the EUIM offer with policy renewals beginning October 1, 2017;
- EUIM applies to policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2018.
Which means: sometime in the coming months, a document will arrive with your renewal paperwork offering you Enhanced UIM. It will be easy to ignore. Don't. For most families, electing EUIM is the single cheapest way to buy meaningful additional protection against a serious crash — protection that does not depend on the other driver's good judgment about their own insurance.
Why this matters so much in Maryland specifically
Maryland's minimum liability limits are modest, and an enormous number of drivers on the Beltway, I-95, and Route 50 carry exactly the minimum — or nothing at all. When one of them causes a catastrophic injury, the at-fault policy is exhausted almost immediately, and the injured person's own UM/UIM coverage becomes the only realistic source of compensation. The offset rule meant that this last line of defense was quietly hollowed out for anyone hit by a driver with limits matching their own. EUIM restores the coverage to what most people always assumed they were buying: protection that adds to, rather than duplicates, whatever the other driver carried. If you do nothing when the offer arrives, you keep traditional UIM and the old offset math keeps applying to your family — which is a perfectly legal choice, but it should at least be a choice, made with the numbers in front of you.
What this means for injured people in Maryland
For crashes governed by existing policies, the old offset rule still controls, and the traditional UIM analysis — what were the tortfeasor's limits, what were yours, what does the offset leave — remains part of every serious injury case we evaluate. For crashes after EUIM policies take effect, injured Marylanders who elected the coverage will finally collect on both policies.
Two practice points worth knowing now:
1. Review your household's coverage before renewal season. UIM protects not just the policyholder but typically resident family members and passengers. An EUIM election protects everyone in the car. 2. Never assume the at-fault driver's limits are the ceiling. Even under current law, identifying every applicable policy — the driver's, the vehicle owner's, your own, a resident relative's — is where serious-injury recoveries are made or lost.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.
Update: Maryland's EUIM framework was revised again years later. For policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2024, Enhanced UIM became the default coverage — insurers provide it unless the insured affirmatively elects traditional UIM in writing — replacing the opt-in election described above.