The Eighth Circuit recently overturned a district court’s decision, concluding that an automobile insurance policy subjected underinsured motorist claims by two spouses to a single $250,000 per-person limit. The court’s analysis turned on the interpretation of the word “and” in the policy’s definition of “you,” read in conjunction with Missouri law.

In the case of Auto-Owners Mt. Ins. Co. v. Granger¹, the insured driver Randy Granger suffered severe injuries in a car accident. The at-fault driver paid policy limits of $25,000, after which Randy Granger sought underinsured motorist benefits. The insurer paid the policy’s per-person limit of $250,000. Randy’s wife, Beverly Granger, also filed a claim with the insurer for loss of consortium damages to cover the decline in “affection, care, companionship, and services” because of her husband’s injuries. 

The insurer declined coverage for Beverly and filed a declaratory action in Missouri district court, seeking confirmation the $250,000 per-person limit represented the maximum available coverage. Beverly Granger filed a counterclaim for breach of contract based on the insurer’s refusal to pay an additional $250,000 limit. 

The declarations page listed Randy and Beverly named insureds. The policy set a per-person limit of $250,000 for underinsured motorist benefits and a total of $500,000 per “occurrence,” which the policy defined as “an accident that results in bodily injury or property damage.” The coverage section of the policy states the insurance company “will pay compensatory damages, including but not limited to loss of consortium, you are legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of any underinsured automobile for bodily injury you sustain.”

The dispute centered on the meaning of “you.” Through an amendatory endorsement, the policy defined “you” as “any named insured shown in the Declarations and, if an individual, such individual named insured’s spouse who resides in the same household.” The policy requires “bodily injury” for an individual to recover under the underinsured motorist limit. 

The district court concluded that Beverly was the same “you” that suffered “bodily injury” as Randy Granger. Therefore, because Beverly Granger sustained no “bodily injury,” she was not entitled to coverage. The district court also concluded the single per-person limit applied to the claim because underinsured motorist benefits are “for bodily injury you sustain.” The district court determined that Beverly Granger’s loss of consortium claims are derivative of Randy Granger’s injuries because her claim does not stem from a separate and distinct bodily injury, precluding coverage for a claim for a second $250,000 payment. 

The Eighth Circuit reversed. It found the policy language ambiguous because it reasonably supported two interpretations when read alongside Missouri law. Under Missouri law, "[t]he cause of action for loss of consortium seeks to compensate the uninjured spouse."² Under Missouri law, a loss-of-consortium claim compensates the uninjured spouse, though it depends on the other spouse having a valid personal injury claim. Based on that framework, the Eighth Circuit concluded that a spouse asserting a loss-of-consortium claim could pursue underinsured motorist benefits under the policy language even without having suffered bodily injury herself.

Central to the court’s reasoning was its treatment of the word “and” in the definition of “you.” The Eighth Circuit held that “and” could be read disjunctively, such that “you” referred to either Randy (as the injured insured) or Beverly (as the spouse). Under that reading, both named insureds could recover benefits. The court effectively interpreted the underinsured motorist provision to mean: “you [(Beverly)] are legally entitled to recover . . . for bodily injury you [(Randy)] sustain[ed].” Through this analysis, the court found that Beverly Granger did sustain a bodily injury because Randy sustained a bodily injury by reading the “and” in the definition of “you” disjunctively.³

The Eighth Circuit also rejected the insurer’s argument that the Grangers were impermissibly stacking policy limits because “the Grangers are not trying to circumvent the limits through stacking the coverages on multiple vehicles."⁴ The insurer’s policy in this case included an anti-stacking limit provision in the underinsured section prohibiting stacking based on the number of automobiles in the Declarations, the number of policies issued to the insured, the number of claims made or suits brought, the number of persons injured, the number of automobiles involved in the occurrence, and “whether the injured person was occupying “your automobile” or any other “automobile” at the time of the “occurrence.” Despite there being multiple prohibitions on stacking, the Eighth Circuit focused only on whether the Grangers were attempting to stack limits in multiple vehicles or had made multiple claims, instead of whether there was a singular “occurrence,” or whether Beverly Granger was in the same automobile as Randy Granger at the time of the “occurrence.” 

Conclusion
This decision underscores how courts may interpret the term “you” to refer to different insureds in different parts of the same policy when applying Missouri law. Policyholder counsel may rely on this reasoning in the auto insurance context, and potentially other insurance contexts, to argue for recovery of multiple limits despite anti-stacking provisions. Insurers, in turn, should carefully review how conjunctions such as “and” and “or” function within policy definitions and coverage grants, and consider whether existing anti-stacking language adequately reflects their intended risk allocation.
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^{1 Auto-Owners Mt. Ins. Co. v. Granger, No. 24-2705, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 880 * (8th Cir. Jan. 14, 2026).} 

^{2 Kingman v. Dillard's, Inc., 643 F.3d 607, 615 (8th Cir. 2011) (emphasis added).} 

^{3 In reaching the decision, the Eighth Circuit relied on Burns v. Smith, a case finding against a different insurer based on the definition of “and.” Burns v. Smith, 303 S.W.3d 505, 511 (Mo. banc 2010). But contrary to the Eighth Circuit’s decision in the present case, the Missouri Supreme Court in Burns held “and” did not mean “or” in the context of that insurer’s policy because “and” fulfilled its common role as a logical connective needing all operands.}

^{4 Auto-Owners Mt. Ins. Co. v. Granger, No. 24-2705, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 880 *8 (8th Cir. Jan. 14, 2026).}