What Insurance Cover Should You Have
Your insurance car policy must cover the following:
- Liability coverage;
- Medical payments coverage;
- Uninsured motorist coverage, and
- Underinsured motorist coverage.
Let’s talk about this one by one.
Liability coverage
Liability coverage is your protection. It protects you if you operate your car and hurt someone else. That’s for your benefit.
Who does it cover?
If you’re driving your car, that’s your insurance coverage, but it also covers anyone that may be driving your car because that coverage follows the vehicle.
Your spouse, parents, kids, and other family members might be driving your car, get into an accident and hurt someone. That coverage will be there for them as well.
How much do you need to have?
The amount of coverage you ought to have is a minimum of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence.
We feel that way very strongly because if you hurt someone and their injuries are worth more than your coverage, they can come after your personal assets. You don’t want that, so you want to ensure you have enough coverage to protect yourself fully.
Medical payments coverage
Medical payments coverage is the coverage that pays for medical expenses that anybody incurs as a result of the use of an automobile. It covers anybody using or inside that automobile. It doesn’t protect someone in another car that you may hit or that hits you.
Who does it cover?
It’s not just the vehicle’s driver or owner who benefits from that coverage. Any passenger in your car who incur medical expenses due to the operation of that vehicle will be allowed to access that medical payments coverage.
How much should you have?
We recommend you have at least $25,000 worth of medical payments coverage because if someone is injured and incurs medical expenses resulting from that automobile, then it’s likely their medical expenses will approach or exceed $25,000.
Now, there is one caveat or exception about medical payments coverage.
If you have health insurance coverage at work, you may not want to pay the extra premium they charge for medical payments. However, because that coverage is optional, it costs you an additional premium charge.
But suppose you have health insurance that would otherwise cover you for any medical expenses you incur from an automobile wreck, then you may not want to get medical payment coverage.
Even though you have health insurance coverage, you may still want to get that coverage to protect others in your vehicle who may not have such healthcare coverage.
Uninsured motorist coverage
Uninsured motorist coverage is required if you have an insurance policy and liability coverage, and if you have liability coverage, you’re required to have uninsured motorist coverage.
Why is uninsured motorist coverage important?
It is critically important because if you get hit and injured by someone driving a car that doesn’t have insurance, then your uninsured motorist coverage will protect you.
In other words, the person who injured you was uninsured, so your uninsured motorist coverage will protect you when you suffer injuries.
Underinsured motorist coverage
Underinsurance coverage protects you if someone else is driving a car and hits you and causes you to incur medical expenses and other damages that are more than the insurance they have.
Example:
In West Virginia, people must have the minimum insurance limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per occurrence.
Let’s say another person with $25,000 of coverage hits you and injures you while you have a hundred thousand dollars in medical bills. How will the other person pay for that difference of $75,000 you’re owed when they only have $25,000 insurance coverage?
The answer is your underinsurance coverage.
It means that another person is underinsured. But buying that coverage will help protect you if someone underinsured hurts you.
How much should you have?
We recommend you get $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence coverage for underinsurance.
I hope you find this information useful.