Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

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Uninsured motorist coverage in automobile policies—a development of the past decade--was designed for a single hazard of the road. >And some arbitration clauses were included to overcome disputes, in some states, special laws were enacted to govern the arbitration practice that resulted. In others, uninsured motorist claims are arbitrated under general statues. In this article. and in the one following, two practicing lawyers discuss the legal and uninsured motorist arbitration issues under their respective state laws.

I. Commercial Arbitration

Although arbitration proceedings have been used in America in colonial times, yet little was known of this system until recent decades. In 1920 the State of New York enacted a law making valid an agreement to arbitrate future controversies, enforceable and irrevocable, and made it part of the Civil Practice Act of 1937.^ Increased interest in arbitration by the legal profession came in more recent years, and in Illinois particularly in 1961, when the statute provided "a written contract to submit to arbitration any controversy thereafter arising between the parties is valid, enforceable and irrevocable save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract."