In Travieso v. Crespo, 2026 N.J. Super. LEXIS 712 (Aug. 6, 2026), the New Jersey Supreme Court considered whether plaintiff Nicky Travieso’s recovery under his employer’s auto liability policy for an accident caused by an uninsured motorist was limited to the $15,000 uninsured motorist (UM) coverage selected or whether it should be reformed to match the $1 million third party liability limits that the employer had selected. Travieso was driving his employer’s vehicle at the time of his accident. The vehicle was insured by Zurich. Zurich offered Travieso the $15,000 maximum UM coverage for his injuries but he argued that he should be entitled to UM coverage equal to the policy’s third party liability limit of $1 million.
Plaintiff Travieso had been in an accident with a vehicle driven by defendant Ciara Crespo. That vehicle had no liability insurance coverage. Hence, Travieso made a claim for his injuries to his employer’s insurance carrier, Zurich, for UM benefits.
The employer’s auto policy made clear that the Zurich limit for UM coverage provided to Travieso’s employer as the named insured and the UM coverage provided to employees such as Travieso were subject to the same $15,000 limit. The Supreme Court reviewed the relevant statutes and noted that step down provisions which purport to provide employees with less UM coverage than the named insured under an employer’s business auto policy were invalid. The statute deems a policy that names the corporate or business entity as the named insured to provide the maximum UM or UIM (underinsured motorist) coverage available under that policy to an individual employed by the corporate entity.
At the trial court level, the trial judge misunderstood the policy terms and thought that Zurich’s UM coverage was $1 million for the employer. In fact, the employer had only selected UM coverage for itself in the amount of $15,000. Based upon this mistaken belief, the trial court judge had granted summary judgment to the plaintiff employee and reformed the policy to provide Travieso with $1 million of UM coverage. Zurich appealed this decision to the New Jersey Supreme Court after the Appellate Division denied leave to appeal and the Court granted Zurich’s leave to file this appeal.
After considering the relevant auto statutes, the Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey law does not require a business auto policy to provide the same limits for UM and general third party liability coverage. Here, the maximum UM coverage available to Travieso was the same as the limit selected by the employer for its coverage. The Court found that the Zurich policy did not violate the auto statutes, nor public policy in not providing matching limits for UM and general third party liability coverage. Thus, it reversed the trial court’s summary judgment granted to plaintiff as to reformation of the policy and dismissed those claims.
