Most of the serious injuries you may suffer throughout your life will be, in all likelihood, owed to a car accident. If you do have the misfortune of being injured you will have three options from which to draw money to cover your medical bills and any lost income. The first is your personal health insurance, followed by the liability insurance of the other driver and last, but not least, is your own auto insurance policy.
The advantage to having coverage for your own injuries is that it can take months to collect from the other driver and in the meantime bills still have to be paid. Another problem you will encounter is that the other person does not have liability insurance or the limit doesn’t cover what you have been awarded. This way, your own auto insurance policy will cover either the whole amount or the outstanding balance.
There are two types of coverage for your own injuries that auto insurance policies offer, the first one being coverage for compensatory damages for injuries caused by under insured or uninsured drivers, and the second is coverage for medical bills no matter who is at fault. In the first case you will be covered for any amount that a court would award you for your injuries, including pain and suffering compensation as well as lost wages. The second will guarantee coverage for all your medical bills, even if you caused the accident.
You can clearly see the benefits of taking out such an auto insurance policy, especially if you end up involved in an accident where the other driver leaves the scene. In such a situation, the driver would simply be classified as uninsured and you would still get the full benefits, even if you can’t find the other person involved. In the case of an under-insured driver, you would first collect the amount his auto insurance policy allows for, say $100,000 as an example, and your own insurance would then cover the gap up to $350,000, the amount you were awarded by the court.
Considering that you will most likely buy an auto insurance policy with reasonable liability coverage, you should do the same for yourself because you are definitely worth just as much as a stranger. If you are still reticent, just think of the strain your family will be placed under if something does happen and you don’t have a comprehensive auto insurance policy.
However, personal injury coverage on your auto insurance policy should only be a complement to a major medical and long term disability insurance policy. The latter will provide coverage for medical bills and financial losses no matter the causes of your condition, therefore if you don’t already have one it may be a good idea to consider adding it to your insurance portfolio.
If you decide to take out an auto insurance policy with personal injury coverage there are three things you need to remember:
· Laws vary from state to state regarding coverage for medical bills and protection against personal injury;
· If you already have good medical and disability coverage through other policies, then only buy as much as the law requires you to. This will help keep your costs down;
· When buying additional medical coverage don’t make it specific only to car related injuries as that is like assuming you will only have medical expenses related to car accidents throughout your whole life.
Ideally, you will want to build yourself a comprehensive insurance portfolio that provides excellent coverage for both yourself as well as any liability you may incur. Researching all the insurance companies and the policies they offer is vital and this may take you a while but it is well worth it in the long run in both savings, by not overlapping policies, as well as support for life’s unexpected blows.
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