Bouton

Insurance Code section 11580.2 requires insurers to provide coverage for bodily injury or wrongful death caused by uninsured motorists. Subdivision (f) of this statute provides that if the insurer and the insured cannot agree whether the insured is legally entitled to recover damages from an uninsured motorist and the amount of such damages, those issues shall be determined by arbitration. (Ins. Code, § 11580.2, subd. (f).)

We granted review in these consolidated cases to decide two related issues. The insurer in Bouton v. USAA Casualty Insurance Company opposed a demand for arbitration on the ground that the claimant was not covered by the insurance policy. We held in Van Tassel v. Superior Court (1974) 12 Cal.3d 624, 627 [ 116 Cal.Rptr. 505 , 526 P.2d 969 ] (Van Tassel) that “jurisdictional facts,” such as whether a claimant is insured under an uninsured motorist provision, are subject to arbitration. But we retreated from this holding the next year, saying in Freeman v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. (1975) 14 Cal.3d 473, 485 [ 121 Cal.Rptr. 477 , 535 P.2d 341 ] (Freeman), that we “loosely and unfortunately” termed the issue in Van Tassel “jurisdictional.” We…