What the insurance company does not want you to know is that 20/40/10 is just Hawaii's legal minimum, not a cap on what your injuries are worth. If the driver who rear-ended you in a Honolulu work zone only carries that minimum, you may be able to use your own underinsured motorist coverage (UIM) after those liability limits are exhausted.

Before you know that, your situation feels boxed in. The other driver's insurer acts like $20,000 per person is the end of the road, even if you needed ongoing treatment after a crash on the H-1, near Dillingham, or around a lane shift with flaggers and heavy equipment. If you're a veteran, it gets even more confusing because the VA may cover some treatment, but that does not automatically mean your injury claim disappears or that your own UIM carrier is off the hook.

After you know it, the path changes:

• You make the claim against the at-fault driver's policy first.
• If their insurer offers its full bodily injury limit, you then look to your own UIM coverage for the gap.
• Your UIM carrier usually gets a credit for what the other driver paid, then evaluates the rest of your damages.

In Hawaii, this is different from uninsured motorist (UM) coverage, which applies when the other driver has no insurance or sometimes in a hit-and-run situation. Here, if the driver has only bare-minimum coverage, you're usually dealing with UIM, not UM.

What helps next is gathering the same proof you'd need in any serious Honolulu crash claim: the HPD report, photos of the scene, road-work details, witness names, medical records, and proof of how the injuries affected work and daily life. If the VA treated you, keep those records too. Civilian insurance and VA benefits are separate systems, and the paperwork rarely lines up on its own.