Car insurance is an important part of your daily life. If you own a car, you need to have insurance to cover it in order to legally drive it on public roads. However, this minimum insurance is rarely enough to provide you and the drivers around you with proper protection should you be involved in an accident. To help you better understand what’s in your car insurance policy, our Waterbury car accident attorneys will discuss the different insurance policy products you should consider having on our blog.
Liability
Liability is the only mandatory part of any car insurance policy, as it’s the type of insurance that provides you with financial backing should an incident occur which you are at fault for. Connecticut’s minimum insurance values are known as “20/40/10,” which means $20,000 of bodily injury coverage per person per incident, $40,000 of bodily injury coverage for all injured parties in an accident, and then $10,000 more for property damage. This means essentially that your insurance company will cover up to $20,000 per person in bodily injury expenses that you are responsible for, up to a maximum of $40,000 total for all injured parties.
While this may seem like a lot of money, it’s actually quite a low figure when you consider that a moderate accident can pretty easily eclipse this mark in medical expenses alone, let alone rehab and other losses someone might sustain as a result of an accident. It’s best to find a policy that fits your budget, but generally it’s a much better idea to have anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in coverage per person to make sure you personally won’t be held liable for any damages because your insurance will cover as much as possible.
Collision
Collision insurance is essentially protection for your car in the event of an accident. If your car is damaged as result of impacting or contact with another vehicle, your collision insurance will be the part of your policy that fixes the damage and either pays to get your car fixed. If it would cost more to repair your car than it would to compensate you for the full value of your vehicle, your vehicle will be deemed a “total loss,” and your company will likely only compensate you for the value of your vehicle because it’s cheaper for them to do so.
Comprehensive
Comprehensive coverage is like collision insurance, only instead of covering you in an accident, it covers you when something strange happens, such as a tree suddenly gives out and falls over on your car, or a fluke hailstorm breaking your windshield and causing major dents to your hood. Comprehensive is also what covers you if your vehicle is stolen.
Uninsured Motorist
Uninsured motorist coverage is perhaps the least common type of insurance on this list, but it’s one that you can’t afford not to have. When a motorist is uninsured or doesn’t have proper insurance to cover all of your losses as a result of an accident, your uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage kicks in and covers the gap between their coverage and your needs, up to your policy maximum.
Let’s look at an example: say you’re involved in an accident that is entirely the other party’s fault and sustain $30,000 worth of medical bills as a result of your injuries. The other driver has minimum insurance, so you’re only able to recover $20,000 from their policy. What about the other $10,000 that isn’t covered? This is where underinsured motorist coverage would kick in and cover the remainder of that outstanding gap in coverage, up to the limit of your policy. If you have $10,000 in uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy, you could file a claim on it and have all $30,000 of your medical bills from your accident covered without paying anything out of your pocket.
If you don’t have any of these types of car insurance, it’s strongly recommended you call your insurance agent and ask for a quote for a policy that includes these various types of coverage so you can make sure you’re covered, no matter what might happen.
Have you been injured in a car accident? Reach out to the Waterbury car accident attorneys from Fitzpatrick Santos Sousa Perugini, P.C. by calling 203.583.8299 today!