PTSD can be ‘bodily injury’ under UIM policy

By Jeffrey P. Downer

Post-traumatic stress disorder, constitutes "bodily injury" under an underinsured-motorist policy if supported by objective symptoms, the Washington Court of Appeals has held.

In Trinh v. Allstate Ins. Co., no. 48199-1-I (Jan. 2002), Lien Trinh saw her best friend die when he was changing her flat tire and an uninsured drunk driver hit him. As a result, Trinh suffered PTSD. She sought coverage under the uninsured-motorist coverage of her auto policy with Allstate. Allstate denied the claim on the ground that PTSD is not "bodily injury" under the policy’s definition of that term. The definition requires "bodily injury, sickness, disease or death" to the claimant.

Trinh sued. Allstate argued, and the trial court agreed, that purely emotional conditions are not "bodily injury" under such insurance-policy definitions. Here, however, Trinh alleged that her chronic PTSD was accompanied by physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea, sleeplessness, hair loss, weight loss, and "fragile fingernails."

Although no reported Washington decision discussed whether emotional injuries that accompany such conditions constitute "bodily injury" under an insurance policy, and other states’ courts are divided, the Trinh court concluded that where physical symptoms of PTSD accompany the diagnosis, it meets the policy’s definition of "bodily injury." Trinh had raised a factual dispute on that point, so the appellate court remanded for trial.