Automobile insurance standard coverage is the basic amount of insurance coverage that is required by law in order for an individual to legally operate a motorized vehicle. You can simply it even further with the blanket statement as being the mandatory amount of auto insurance coverage a driver must possess.
The most important part of anyone’s car insurance policy is the liability coverage. This coverage protects the consumer against the cost of damages and injury that is a direct result of that same consumer if they are the cause of a vehicular accident. For instance if you’re driving down the road and accidentally run into another person’s car this insurance coverage will pay for the damages that result due to the accident.
The liability coverage is further broken down into two subsections. The first is bodily injury liability. This covers and personal injury inflicted by yourself upon others during a car accident. The second subsection is property damage liability. As you may have guessed this is your insurance protection against any damage you cause to another individuals property, usually their car.
Although coverage amounts can vary it is generally suggested that a good baseline of automobile insurance standard coverage should be 100/300/100. This can be read as $100,000 worth of bodily injury caused to another person, $300,000 towards bodily injuries for everyone involved and $100,000 for property damage. With rising medical costs and outrageous car prices this would be the absolute minimum insurance protection I would personally carry in my automobile insurance standard coverage. However, each state is different and you will need to check to see what their car insurance laws constitute as a minimum coverage amount.
If you are in a financial crunch and need a way to save money on your insurance policy try to avoid retaining only the minimum amount of coverage required by your state. Instead try raising your deductible amount (the amount you pay first in the event of an accident before your insurance company kicks in with its payment). You will find that by raising the amount $500 or $750 will significantly lower the monthly costs of your automobile insurance standard coverage.
Two other policies that exist include the medical payments insurance which provides for the immediate treatment of injuries sustained during an auto accident. Anyone riding in your vehicle to include yourself is covered, regardless of who is at fault for the accident. The second policy is commonly known as PIP or personal injury protection, is similar to medical payments coverage, but usually provides broader coverage. Many PIP policies provide compensation for lost wages, funeral expenses, and pain and suffering. Again you will need to check with your state insurance laws for further clarification if you are required to have this additional coverage.
Finally as a safety measure against law breaking individuals who illegally drive without insurance there is uninsured motorist insurance when the other driver has no liability coverage and underinsured motorist coverage which pays for the cost of your injuries that exceed the other driver’s coverage maximum. As before with the PIP coverage you will need to make sure whether or not your particular state requires these forms of coverage as part of their automobile insurance standard coverage.
By: Tim Gorman
Posts Tagged ‘Minimum Coverage’
What Is Meant By Automobile Insurance Standard Coverage?
What Are The Auto Liability Insurance State Minimums For My State?
As you shop online for the best auto insurance deals you may begin to ask yourself what exactly is required by law when it comes to auto insurance. Fortunately this article outlines the auto liability insurance state minimums that you are required to have in order to legally drive in the United States. No matter what state you drive in all of them have financial responsibility laws and require motorists to purchase minimum amounts of auto liability insurance except for Tennessee, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.
Many websites and advocates of insurance (to include myself) recommend having a minimum of $100,000 for bodily injury protection per person and at least $300,000 for property damage costs and physical injury costs. The main reason for this is due to the increased amount of money needed to rectify an accident is usually more then what the states declare as the minimum amount of insurance coverage needed.
I have compiled the following information from the American Insurance Association, the Property Casualty Insurers Association, and the Insurance Information Institute. It shows the auto liability insurance state minimums as required by each state. In order to understand the numbers you must know what the mean. The first two numbers are for bodily injury liability and the third number represents the minimum amount of property damage liability.
As an example my home state of Missouri shows the following – Missouri 25/50/10. This means Missouri requires as a minimum coverage up to $50,000 for all persons injured in an accident, subject to a limit of $25,000 for one individual, and $10,000 coverage for property damage.
Alabama 20/40/10 Alaska 50/100/25 Arizona 15/30/10 Arkansas 25/50/25
California 15/30/5 Colorado 25/50/15 Connecticut 20/40/10 Delaware 15/30/5
D.C. 25/50/10 Florida 10/20/10 Georgia 25/50/25 Hawaii 20/40/10
Idaho 25/50/15 Illinois 20/40/15 Indiana 25/50/10 Iowa 20/40/15
Kansas 25/50/10 Kentucky 25/50/10 Louisiana 10/20/10 Maine 50/100/25
Maryland 20/40/15 Massachusetts 20/40/5 Michigan 20/40/10 Minnesota 30/60/10
Mississippi 10/20/05 Missouri 25/50/10 Montana 25/50/10 Nebraska 25/50/25
Nevada 15/30/10 New Hampshire 25/50/25 New Jersey 15/30/5 New Mexico 25/50/10 New York 25/50/10 North Carolina 30/60/25 North Dakota 25/50/25 Ohio 12.5/25/7.5
Oklahoma 10/20/10 Oregon 25/50/10 Pennsylvania 15/30/5 Rhode Island 25/50/25
South Carolina 15/30/10 South Dakota 25/50/25 Tennessee 25/50/10 Texas 20/40/15
Utah 25/50/15 Vermont 25/50/10 Virginia 25/50/20 Washington 25/50/10
West Virginia 20/40/10 Wisconsin 25/50/10 Wyoming 25/50/20
Remember these figures only represent auto insurance liability state minimums. Many experts agree that more insurance is needed in order to fully protect yourself in the event you’re involved in an automobile accident.
By: Tim Gorman
Tips to Obtain the Least Expensive Car Insurance Quote
Driving a car can be a lot of fun, but at the same time there are a number of things that you need to attend to before you can drive wherever you want. One of the major things that you need to keep you car street legal is car insurance, because without it you could end up losing your license or even being thrown in jail for violating a law that most places take very seriously. Buying cheap car insurance is therefore a priority for most people and here are some ways that you can get quotes that are less expensive than you might think.
Shop Around
The single most important thing that you can do in order to get the least expensive quote is to shop around. Not all car insurance companies are created equal and it is quite possible that some car insurance company out there might have a better plan for your specific needs than the one you are currently working with. Different companies tend to have strongholds in different areas of car insurance, so some companies might excel at providing cheap minimum coverage while other car companies might excel at quality versus cost, which in turn would result in a different range of quotes.
However, one thing that you need to keep in mind as well is to shop around the local insurance providers. Many of these providers will not show up in a web search or an online insurance quote comparer, because the companies that work those websites tend to only look at national firms when they are computing their competitiveness within the insurance market. While this is usually a good plan, every now and then a local provider has an excellent plan that nobody ever hears about, which is why you need to make sure you check them out before making a final decision.
Ask for Better Prices
Insurance companies are very similar to companies that work in the credit card industry. They are always looking to expand the number of customers that they have, because if they are continually expanding their customer base then it means that they are paying out insurance plans on firmer financial ground. Expansion is the key for any credit or income sharing type business and for that reason the customer actually has a lot of leeway in dealing with insurance companies that they didn’t know they even had.
In some cases, if you ask for a lower place straight out of the starting gate you might actually be granted it by the particular agent that you are working with. If an agent senses that a particular offer that is given by you might result in a sale if accepted, then there is every chance that they will speak to their supervisor about it. If the supervisor agrees, then you are good to go with an insurance plan that you were able to get for less than the quoted price. While this might seem a bit farfetched, please note that it costs you nothing to ask and the result might be just what you were looking for.
Other Tips
After you’ve shopped around for quotes and tried to browbeat your way down to better prices, there is not much else that you can do. The simple truth of the matter is that beyond malleability at the level of the company, there are not that many ways for you to obtain cheaper car insurance. Some areas offer driver training courses attached to insurance discount certificates, so checking with your local government to see if they offer such a thing would be the next step to take once you’ve exhausted the other opportunities available.
By: Amy Nutt