I am revisting these topics since I have spent a lot of time this week answering questions about this. You are in an accident and have no insurance. The other driver has a minimum limits policy and you have really high medical bills. What happens?
Basically, you can collect medical bills and wage loss, generally referred to as economic damages. You cannot collect pain and suffereing, generally called non-economic damages. Why? Because you are uninsured. Prop. 213 limits your recovery to economic damages only.
However, if once you sign a release, you can probably not sue for anything. Why? Because signing the release means you agree not to sue the other person for damages after accepting the insurance money. Do not sign a release in this situation until you can verify the person’s assets.
You can read more about these topics here
and here.