Insurance : UM Coverage – Owned Vehicle – Partial Exclusion

Where plaintiff sought uninsured motorist coverage after her husband was killed in an automobile accident, the trial court properly limited the insurer’s liability based on partial exclusion language in two of the couple’s policies since the policies provided coverage for the husband’s wrongful death but not for the plaintiff who was not injured, and the policies read as a whole with the partial exclusion clearly limited the insurer’s liability for the husband’s death since the husband was occupying one vehicle he owned at the time of his death, but the vehicle was not covered by the policies for the other two vehicles.

Partial exclusion

Dissenting opinion by Teitelman, J.: “I respectfully dissent. The principal opinion holds that Mrs. Floyd is not entitled to UM coverage because she did not sustain any bodily injuries and, further, that the partial exclusion unambiguously limits coverage for two of the policies to the statutory minimum. This holding is incorrect because Mrs. Floyd is the ‘insured’ and, as such, the partial exclusion is inapplicable to her.”

Judgment is affirmed.

Floyd-Tunnell v. Shelter Mutual Insurance Company (MLW No. 66728/Case No. SC93904 – 15 pages) (Supreme Court of Missouri, Russell, C.J.; Breckenridge, Fischer, Stith, and Wilson, JJ., concur; Teitelman, J., dissents in separate opinion filed; Draper, J., concurs in opinion of Teitelman, J.) Appealed from circuit court, Jackson County, Powell, J. (James E. Corbett, David T. Tunnell and Daniel P. Molloy, Springfield, for appellants) (William Clayton Crawford and James P. Maloney, Kansas City, Missouri, for respondent).

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