Gеorge Rashid (Rashid) petitions us to review a court of appeals decision holding that State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm) was not liable for his uninsured motorist (UM) claim. See Rashid v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., No. 1 CA-CV 88-0346 (Ct.App. Apr. 18, 1989) (memorandum decision). We took review to determine whether State Farm’s UM “other insurance” clause violates public policy. Rule 23, Ariz.R.Civ.App.P., 17B A.R.S. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Ariz. Const, art. 6, § 5(3) and A.R.S. § 12-120.24.
I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The facts necessary for resolution of the issue are undisputed. Rashid was a passenger in a car driven by Spence Morris (Morris) that was involved in an accident with a car driven by an uninsured motorist. Morris’s “host” vehicle was insured by Safeco Insurance Company (Safeco). Safe-co provided UM coverage of $50,000. The policy Rashid purchased from State Farm included $30,000 in UM coverage. Rashid’s damages exceeded $50,000.
Safeco paid its UM limit of $50,000 to Rashid. Invoking its other insurance clause, State Farm refused to pay the balance of Rashid’s damages. Rashid sought declaratory relief in the trial court to determine whether State Farm cоuld legally refuse to provide excess coverage.
The parties filed motions for partial summary judgment regarding State Farm’s liability. The trial court found State Farm’s other insurance provision void. State Farm appealed. The court of appeals acknowledged that we have recently invalidated other insurance clauses similar to the one at issue as contrary to public policy. Memo. dec. at 3 (citing
Arizona Prop. & Cas. Ins. Guar. Fund v. Herder,
*272 Rashid petitioned for review. We must decide whether State Farm’s UM other insurance clause is enforceable and whether Transportation Insurance Company v. Wade has continuing vitality in light of our recent decisions construing A.R.S. § 20-259.01 (UM/UIM Act).
II. DISCUSSION
A. State Farm’s Position
As the host vehicle’s insurer, Safeco’s UM coverage was primary. A.R.S. §§ 28-1170.01 and 20-1123.01 (primary coverage follows the vehicle). Thus, State Farm argues it provided only excess coverage and was obliged to pay only the amount by which its coverage exceeded the primary coverage.
1
State Farm claims
Wade
and its progeny have upheld the validity of such clauses, and that the trial court improperly relied on a recent supreme court case,
Spain v. Valley Forge Insurance Co.,
In
Spain,
we held that an insurer could not offset payments made under the liability coverage for the negligence of the host driver against the limits of the UM coverage for the negligence of a second and uninsured driver. The injured party was entitled to recover under both portions of the policy, so long as his recovery did not exceed his damages.
State Farm concedes it cannot offset mandatory coverages.
See Bacchus v. Farmers Ins. Group Exch.,
Thus, the question at hand is whether the insurer can limit the mandatory coverаge it provides when another policy has provided similar coverage to the insured, or does the insured have the right to aggregate 2 his UM limits with those covering *273 the same loss and available from another, primary policy?
B. Other Insurance Clauses
We have recently reviewed the historical origins as well as the purpose and nature of other insurance clauses.
See Brown v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.,
Of course, Brown was a UIM case, where the coverage in question was intended to be excess and apply in addition to primary coverage. Here, we deal with UM coverage in a case where the insured bought a $30,000 limit UM policy and has received all of that—and more—in UM benefits from the primary carrier. In essence, State Farm argues that it should pay nothing because this insured got more than he paid for, albeit from another insurer.
We appreciate that when an insured aggregates UM policies he is often in a better position than he would have been if the other motorist had been properly insured and the UM coverage thus had been inapplicable. 3 Professor Widiss rejects the notion that this argument should permit enforcement of the excess/escape provision of other insurance clauses, stating:
The сonclusion which insurance companies draw from this fact—that they should be allowed to reduce their liability—does not follow. A premium has been paid for each of the coverages and the insurance policy has been issued. It seems both equitable and desirable to permit recovery under more than one coverage until the claimant is fully indemnified. This is not the same as stacking medical expenses insurance coverages so that a claimant recovers for the same out of pocket costs several times. The rule that allows medical expenses insurance to be stacked is appropriately criticized, and the insurance companies should be entitled to сurtail duplication of benefits by limitations in medical expense insurance coverage.
1 A. WIDISS, UNINSURED AND UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE Comment, at 403-04 (2d ed. 1987) *274 (emphasis added). 4
We note also that the legislature has specifically outlined circumstances under which an insured is precluded from aggregating multiple coverages in A.R.S. § 20-259.01(F), which provides as follows:
If multiple policies or coverages purchased by one insured on different vehicles apply to an accident or claim, the insurer may limit the coverage so that only one policy, selected by the insured, shall be applicable to any one accident.
This stacking preclusion does not apply in this case because we are not dealing with multiple policies bought by one insured from one insurer.
The majority of courts that have considered UM excess/escape clauses similar to the one before us have found them to be unenforceable. 1 A. WIDISS, § 13.6, at 397. The cases in point deal with an insured who has not been fully indemnified for his or her loss. They refuse to enforce an other insurance clause that permits an insurer to reduce coverage provided within the scope of the insuring agreement merely because. of the fortuitous availability of additional coverage from a different insurer. These cases reason that enforcing the escape clause would be contrary to the objectives underlying the statutory mandate requiring that all insurance policies issued or delivered in the state provide UM coverage. 8C J. APPLEMAN, INSURANCE LAW AND PRACTICE § 5102.25, at 471-72 (1981);
see also Herder,
In
Safeco Ins. Co. v. Jones,
Most courts that have considered the issue agree with Jones’s reasoning.
See
1 A. WIDISS, § 13.6, at 397;
We share these views. Our cases have not looked with favor on insurers’ use of exclusions, offset clauses, other insurаnce clauses, excess/escape clauses, and the like to reduce or eliminate coverages the legislature has required insurers to provide their customers.
6
Over the last fifteen years, the legislature has made it quite clear that motor vehicle insurers must provide their customers with UM coverage and the right to purchase UM аnd UIM coverage insurance limits at least equal to the liability coverage.
See
A.R.S. § 20-259.01;
see also State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Wilson,
The message we read in the statute, and the public policy that underlies it, is simply that each insurer must provide' each insured with coverage in the manner and amount required in the statute. See Wilson, Brown. In this court’s view, the exceptions permitted are those allowed by the statutes, not those insurers may put in the policy. The excess/escape provision is in the policy, but not authorized by the statute. Because it removes that which the statute requires to be in the policy, we hold the escape clause cannot be applied when the insured is not fully indemnified.
Because' Wade was decided' before the statutes evolved to their present form, to the extent it permits the usе of the excess *276 clause to reduce or eliminate coverage the law now requires to be part of the policy, it is overruled.
III. CONCLUSION
The legislature requires that insurers provide UM coverage. Our statute sets a maximum amount for UM recovery—it will not permit the injured party to receive damages in excess of those which he is “legally entitled to recover.” See A.R.S. § 20-259.01. Where the insured has paid premiums for a particular limit that the statute entitles him to purchase, the statute contains no exception permitting an insurer to set a different limit by eliminating or reducing recovery below actual damages simply because another policy fortuitously also provides some coverаge. Accordingly, we hold that State Farm’s “other insurance” escape clause cannot be applied to the UM coverage in this case.
We vacate the court of appeals’ decision and affirm the trial court’s judgment. We remand to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Notes
. The State Farm policy stated:
3. If the insured sustains bodily injury while occupying a vehicle not owned by you, your spouse or any relative, this coverage applies:
a. as excess to any uninsured motor vehicle coverage which applies to the vehicle as primary coverage, but
b. only in the amount by which it exceeds the primary coverage.
(Emphasis in original.) The provision is an adaptation of the 1966 STANDARD FORM, Part VI: Additional Conditions: E. Other Insurance. This type of combination provision is generally referred to аs an “excess/escape" clause. 1 A. WIDISS, UNINSURED AND UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE § 13.3, at 386-87 (2d ed. 1987). It is excess because it limits liability to situations when its coverage exceeds primary coverage. Id. It is called an "escape” provision because the clause allows the insurer to escape liability unless its coverage limit exceeds the other insurance appliсable to the accident. Id. See also J. Kurtock, Overlapping Liability Coverage—The "Other Insurance"Provision, 25 FED’N INS. COUNS. Q. 45, 49 (Fall 1974).
. The process may be described as "stacking.”
See
12A G. COUCH, CYCLOPEDIA OF INSURANCE LAW § 45:628, at 77 (2d rev. ed. 1981). It may involve either intra-policy stacking or inter-policy stacking. In inter-policy situations, such as the present, similar coverages are available through separate policies. We prefer to use the term "aggregation” to dеscribe combining the limits of separate policies issued by different insurers, and the term “stacking” to describe attempts to combine the coverages of a single policy or multiple policies issued by a single insurer hecause confusion often arises as to the rules pertaining to one insurer as opposed to those applying tо two.
See Brown v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.,
Of course, the court will prohibit stacking when an insured has purchased multiple coverages from one insurer against the same event and seeks to stack the limits provided by any single coverage. In fact, the legislature has ex *273 pressly provided that an insurer may prohibit such a result. See A.R.S. § 20-259.01(F). See also 3 R. LONG, LAW OF LIABILITY INSURANCE § 24.24, at 137 (1987) ("Analytical problems arise in that many of the pro rata cases involve multiple coverage under one policy, that is, intra-policy stacking, and not multiple policies. This distinction is critical since a pro rata clause might be invalid in multiple-policy situations but valid in intra-policy stacking cases.").
We have previously upheld provisions forbidding the stacking of UIM and liability coverage in a single-tortfеasor, single-policy case.
See Duran
v.
Hartford Ins. Co.,
. The same can be said in many other instances. For example, an insured injured by an uninsured motorist may be much better off than one injured by a motorist who is insured but has minimum limits.
See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Eden,
Our inquiry in this case should not be circumscribed by the attempt to eliminate disparate treatment resulting from the fortuitous circumstances that vary from case to cаse. Our inquiry, rather, is directed to the question of what the statutes require to be included in all policies and whether those statutes provide insurance carriers with latitude to insert exclusions, offsets, or escape provisions.
. In
Smith
v.
Pacific Auto. Ins. Co.,
The rule against multiple recovery was derived from fire-insurance cases. In the case of a loss by fire, the monetary loss is usually easily measured and in certain instances it can be shown that the total damage suffered by the plaintiff was less than the combined insurance proceeds sought to be recovered. However, in the field of life and accident insurance, the damages to the person are not readily measured in money and there is little likelihood of either fraud or profit through overinsurance. Furthermore, the mere assertion that one would seek out an accident with an uninsured motorist in order to collect upon someone else’s insurance рolicy contains its own answer. In the case at bar, there is no reason to deny the insured the benefits for which he has contracted under-his own insurance simply because he also has some incidental rights as a third party beneficiary under another person’s insurance.
Id.
. In other cases where an insured attempted recovery under both thе uninsured motorist coverages in a policy issued to him and a policy issued to the owner or operator of the host vehicle, the following courts held the insured could collect from multiple policies in spite of the other insurance clause in his policy or policies:
Travelers Indem. Co. v. William,
.
See
the following cases voiding exclusions:
State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Duran,