Car Insurance

Car Insurance

Everyone should have insurance on their motor vehicle. If you purchase motor vehicle insurance, you will purchase or be given the option of purchasing the following insurance:

• Collision
• Comprehensive
• Liability
• Med Pay
• Uninsured Motorist
• Underinsured Motorist

All of these coverages are important, and all should be purchased. The only significant exception to purchasing them all is collision coverage may not make sense if the vehicle you are insuring is of nominal value. Unfortunately, most people think that if they have purchased collision insurance, they have “full coverage.” Such is clearly not the case, as we will try to explain.

Collision

This coverage protects you against the cost of repairing your own vehicle, in the situation where the accident is to some degree your own fault or the other party in the accident did not have insurance. In many ways, it is the least important coverage and unfortunately, it is the only one most people pay any attention to.

Our recommendation is to get collision coverage with either a $100-$250 deductible.

Comprehensive

This coverage protects you against damage or loss of your vehicle from something that might happen which is not related to the vehicle being driven, such as theft, fire, wind, hail, etc. Hitting a deer is also covered under this provision as such is not thought to be related to any negligence in the way in which the car was operated.

Our recommendation is to get this coverage, with a $100 deductible, even for cars that arein storage.

Med Pay Coverage

This coverage provides payment for medical bills that are the result of a motor vehicle accident. This coverage applies, even if the bills are incurred in an accident when you were not in your car, or possibly even if in another car. In Wisconsin, every policy should have $1,000 of med pay coverage, but more is better, unless health insurance is expected to pay all of your bills.

Our recommendation is to purchase$5,000 of med pay coverage and lots more if you don’t have medical insurance.

Liability

Liability coverage is purchased to protect you if you get sued because of a car accident that you caused. This is perhaps the most important insurance you will buy, not only because it will prevent you from going bankrupt, but also because it is part of your responsibility as a driver of a what can be an instrument of destruction, a motor vehicle. How much insurance is enough? As much as you can afford, and get your insurance agent to quote you the difference to buy higher policies. And the amount of liability insurance you purchase is doubly important because it dictates the maximum amount of uninsured and underinsured coverage you can buy.

$100/300,000 policies are absolutely not enough and any policy which provides a split coverage, provides an illusion of more coverage than you actually get.

A $100/300,000 policy only provides $100,000 available to settle any one persons injuries. $100,000 is about what the medical bills would be for one weeks hospitalization in a serious accident. Even accidents where people walk away from the wreck, often have values above $100,000 and these are not the false and inflated claims the insurance companies want you to believe. If a younger person suffers a neck or back injury which prevents them from returning to their current employment, the damages will almost always exceed $100,000. If a 20 year old person’s income is reduced even $2 an hour as a result of injuries, the loss of earning capacity over such person’s life will exceed $100,000. Damages in motor vehicle accident cases also include pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and past and future medical bills. For info on damages in personal injury actions, click here.

Our recommendation is to purchase a single limit $500,000 liability coverage and to also explore getting a $1,000,000 umbrella policy.

Uninsured Motorist Coverage

This coverage is extremely important because it protects you against being damaged, by what are often the worst drivers on the road, including many drivers who don’t have insurance because there driving licenses have been revoked or suspended.

Underinsured Motorist Coverage

Even more important than “uninsured motorist coverage” is underinsured motorist coverage. Where uninsured, protects you from the driver who doesn’t have any insurance, underinsured protects you from someone who doesn’t have enough. As discussed above, almost no one has enough insurance, so it is imperative that you buy as much of this coverage as you can avoid. Those with drunk driving convictions and financial responsibility violations, only have to prove they have $25,000 of insurance.

Our recommendation is to purchase a single limit $500,000 of both uninsured and underinsured coverage and to also explore getting a $1,000,000 of both on an umbrellapolicy. Not all companies sell uninsured and underinsured coverages on their umbrella’s, so keep this important consideration inmind when looking for an umbrella policy.

For the Independent Insurance Agents of America perspective on car insurance, click here.

NEXT: Independent Medical Exams.

Understanding Subtle Brain Injury

The concussions that disable, are almost always more symptomatic at 24 hours, than at the 2-4 hour time frame when injured persons are evaluated in the emergency room. Brain injury symptoms escalate over the first 24 hours, because brain injury involves a cascade of events. It is critical that if you are still symptomatic the day after your injury, go back to the same Emergency Room, don’t wait for a doctors appointment. It is critical that the Emergency Room personnel see that the symptoms still persist or have gotten worse.

View Our Video Series on Concussions