Car Insurance

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

May the force be with you
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Aug 8, 2013
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Two Questions:

1. Do you carry state mins or more?
As I am adding a 4th person to our policy, Flo from Progressive asked if I want to lover my coverage to state minimums to save money on my premium.
I said "I don't know enough about this, let me ask this flying forum how this works."
She was like. "Makes total sense, I'll wait."

2. Who Pays in the event of an accident? Lets say I am driving and I hit a fire hydrant and one of the passengers in the back seat flies out the window (which was open) and lands in a tree and has to saw one of his own arms off to free himself. The other passenger is trapped and the car is filling with water (I rolled the open window up because it was cold) and struggling to gasp for his last breaths but sadly passes there in the car. The guy in the passenger seat to the right of me has a broken back but doesn't drown because he had a scuba tank with him. I'm fine by the way. Thanks for asking.

Doesn't their health insurance pay their medical bills? My state mins are 30k per person, 60k per accident, and 25k property.
If you drive a car into my house wouldn't my home owner's insurance pay for the damages?

Is there any compelling reason to have more than the mins? I currently carry 100, 300, 250 but I am not sure if that is necessary.

Let me know your thoughts.
I need to get an answer for Flo.
 
Based on the alarming specificity of your query, let me know if you'd like me to dial 911 on your behalf.

I think the laws governing who is ultimately liable may vary state-by-state, so any advice giver may need to know where you reside or where this grotesque scene occurred. (I am neither a lawyer nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night).

When determining the coverage, it's going to be a personal decision based on a combination of the value of the items you're covering, the health of your savings account, and your tolerance for financial risk.

Hopefully this was marginally more helpful than asking a generative AI chatbot. But maybe not, and in that case, please accept my preemptive apology.
 
In general I’m on the thin side when it comes to insurance. I’ve only had 1 vehicle claim in over 35 years, I wasn’t involved with hitting the pole on a rainy night in the parking lot. The repair was over $5k, I do remember the no ‘rental reimbursement’, though I made do.


Some people have different ways of thinking about insurance. Yeah, I understand there are other drivers on the road. For the question posted, it matters how much is the savings, for what amount of coverage.
If the savings is minimal, maybe not.

Back in the day a few times I paid cash for a new vehicle, drove it with only liability insurance. For some reason I wasn’t bothered, never had an accident. My current truck is covered, but at a level that’s reasonable. I have higher deductibles, try to keep things defensive.
 
Personally I carry more than the state required minimum. It really depends on the value of what your covering, your policy limits, and state law. I was hit by an aggressive drive several years ago totaling my dually and RV I was pulling at the time.She had a suspended licenese and no personal insurance (a requirement for a license here in NC) The vehicle owners coverage didn't come close to covering my loss so I had to hit my insurance and I ended up tapping out both of those policies as well. If I hadn't had the extra coverage based on asset value I would have been out in the neighborhood of 20k ... so yeah I pay a little extra but it has paid off ... more than once in my life. Obviously YMMV as everyone's situation is different.
 
Let's see, in MD state minimum is $30,000 for bodily injury, $60,000 for two or more. $15,000 for property damage.

So, how many cars on the road that you could possibly hit, at your fault, that will cost more than $15,000 to repair or replace? You hit a brand new $100,000 car, how do you pay the $85,000 not covered by your insurance.

If you hit someone or someone in your car is injured in an accident, how long does it take to run up a $30,000 plus medical bill?

What are your assets? What happens if you lose all of them paying off a claim against you?

Personally, I carry max coverage. Years ago, doing an insurance review, I asked how much more to bump up to max coverage. It was like $6 per month at the time.

A thread on BT about maxing your Uninsured Motorist coverage also. So if someone without insurance hits your higher end car, you are not out of pocket to repair/replace.

And I carry a Personal Umbrella policy to cover me even higher.
 
Medical bills related to auto accidents are typically billed to the auto insurer first.

With the rising costs of cars and the inclusion of all kinds of driver assist sensors on everything, repair costs are astronomical now.

Even if the crash isn’t your fault, your insurance is going to have to go after the other person’s (if they’re even insured) while your bills hang in the balance.

In my opinion, you can’t really have too much insurance.
 
Pinecone said:
If you hit someone or someone in your car is injured in an accident, how long does it take to run up a $30,000 plus medical bill?
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Wouldn't their health insurance cover medical expenses?
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Wouldn't their health insurance cover medical expenses?
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That matters not if they sue you...and most likely will on the Gulf Coast, at least. I carry the max available liability and I have a 10M umbrella to cover anything over that. One caveat with an umbrella....it is considered 'excess coverage'. That is, in excess of maximum available in the auto policy. One cannot go with limited coverage and expect an umbrella to make up the difference; that gap between the max available and your current limits will come out of your pocket. I rolled like that until I changed agents who informed me of the exposure. It was an 'OH CRAP!' moment.
 
robin ardoin said:
That matters not if they sue you...and most likely will on the Gulf Coast, at least. I carry the max available liability and I have a 10M umbrella to cover anything over that. One caveat with an umbrella....it is considered 'excess coverage'. That is, in excess of maximum available in the auto policy. One cannot go with limited coverage and expect an umbrella to make up the difference; that gap between the max available and your current limits will come out of your pocket. I rolled like that until I changed agents who informed me of the exposure. It was an 'OH CRAP!' moment.
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In my experience, the umbrella policy will specify what minimum limits you have to carry on your auto policies. I think mine is 125/250k. If you can afford to own an airplane, you probably need an umbrella, and DEFINITELY should NOT be carrying state mins on your cars.

I'd recommend staying away from the direct carriers like Progressive and Geico, and finding a good agent who can actually explain this stuff rather than trying to entice you with the cheapest price possible and leave you underinsured. Also, when you do eventually have a claim, an good agent will go to bat for with the company. A good independent agent was able to get me the same coverage for less money compared to State Farm and Country Companies, and is a valuable resource when I need an insurance question answered.

If the accident is your fault, you are liable for the injuries to your passengers and anyone else involved. Their health insurance will pay for their treatment, and then file a claim against your auto insurance for reimbursement. If your policy won't cover the bill, they'll look at your assets and decide if you have enough assets to make it worth their while to sue you personally. With the injuries you outline in your narrative, you're probably in trouble even with 300K limits, depending on the age and family situation of the guy you killed and the scuba diver you paralyzed.

If I drove a car into your house, you'd file a claim with your homeowners, and they would pay you. Then they'd sue my auto insurer, same as above. Unless your house is worth a couple million bucks, I'd have enough insurance to cover it. The problem would be if my engine failed again and I crashed my airplane into your house, because my umbrella excludes aviation.

Tell Flo to hit the bricks.
 
In today's litigious society you can count on being sued - for a lot. Your insurance will not cover all the medical expenses in the scenario you described and whomever does pay those expensed will subrogate (come after you) for the balance. Your "100, 300, 250" may not be enough in that scenario.

I, too, dislike paying premiums for something I may never use, but I've got too much to lose if "something" does happen.
 
I hate insurance and insurance companies so much that I shot myself in the foot. I literally found out yesterday I was paying for 2 car insurance policies for the last 6 months. Someone called me I guess and said your policy is expiring can we get you a quote. I guess I liked the quote so I signed up and then my other policy renewed and I didn't realize it. My auto and homeowners keep doubling in spite of no accidents or claims. Its a racket. I guess it irritates me enough that I bury my head in the sand. I wonder if I have a 3rd one I forgot about. Yesterday when I was going through all of this insurance stuff my agent tried to quote me a homeowners policy but he refused to give me a quote without me providing my current company's deceleration. You can't tell me how much your product costs without knowing what your competitor charges? Its maddening.
 
There's usually some good discounts to be had by having all your coverage with one company. Since you're clearly looking for things to do right now, it'd probably be worth shopping your entire "portfolio" of insurance to a couple different brokers. Home, Auto, probably an Umbrella. Find someone who will actually sit down with you and talk to you. You'll be able to figure out if they're just trying to make a sale or if they're willing to help & teach you. They'll probably want to see what coverage you have now not to see the premium so much as what coverages you have and what values things are listed at. Cars they just plug in the VIN number, but houses have a lot of variables like age, quality of construction, square foot, roof age, wiring age, furnace age, sketchy pool and hot tub....
 
Jim K said:
There's usually some good discounts to be had by having all your coverage with one company. Since you're clearly looking for things to do right now, it'd probably be worth shopping your entire "portfolio" of insurance to a couple different brokers. Home, Auto, probably an Umbrella. Find someone who will actually sit down with you and talk to you. You'll be able to figure out if they're just trying to make a sale or if they're willing to help & teach you. They'll probably want to see what coverage you have now not to see the premium so much as what coverages you have and what values things are listed at. Cars they just plug in the VIN number, but houses have a lot of variables like age, quality of construction, square foot, roof age, wiring age, furnace age, sketchy pool and hot tub....
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This right here.

Find a good broker and while you're getting quotes ask for an umbrella policy to be included. All of mine have been an excess policy to the home owner's policy. It's literally "cheap insurance" for the unknown unknowns of liability in our litigious society.

FWIW, in TN and in NC, for us Erie seems to be a common underwriter for these independent agents.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Wouldn't their health insurance cover medical expenses?
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Yes, they will pay their insureds medical expenses, but they will then subrogate against the third party who caused the injury for reimbursement. If your insurance is insufficient, you will be personally liable for the deficiency.
Liability coverage is cheap.
 
Jim K said:
There's usually some good discounts to be had by having all your coverage with one company. Since you're clearly looking for things to do right now, it'd probably be worth shopping your entire "portfolio" of insurance to a couple different brokers. Home, Auto, probably an Umbrella. Find someone who will actually sit down with you and talk to you. You'll be able to figure out if they're just trying to make a sale or if they're willing to help & teach you. They'll probably want to see what coverage you have now not to see the premium so much as what coverages you have and what values things are listed at. Cars they just plug in the VIN number, but houses have a lot of variables like age, quality of construction, square foot, roof age, wiring age, furnace age, sketchy pool and hot tub....
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Recently, I saved some money by unbundling my policy. Always check both options.
 
MacFlier said:
Recently, I saved some money by unbundling my policy. Always check both options.
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Yeah, when I was initially getting auto last year, I was paying $119 / mo for 3 drivers on 3 cars.
Every bundle was about the same for home and caused the auto to increase 4X. I only found 1 company that didn't require a bundle.
They are starting to only cover you if you bundle and a lot of insurers (home) are pulling out of Texas because it rains sometimes they aren't really in the business of helping people.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I hate insurance and insurance companies so much that I shot myself in the foot. I literally found out yesterday I was paying for 2 car insurance policies for the last 6 months. Someone called me I guess and said your policy is expiring can we get you a quote. I guess I liked the quote so I signed up and then my other policy renewed and I didn't realize it. My auto and homeowners keep doubling in spite of no accidents or claims. Its a racket. I guess it irritates me enough that I bury my head in the sand. I wonder if I have a 3rd one I forgot about. Yesterday when I was going through all of this insurance stuff my agent tried to quote me a homeowners policy but he refused to give me a quote without me providing my current company's deceleration. You can't tell me how much your product costs without knowing what your competitor charges? Its maddening.
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Your agent doesn't really care what you pay for your home insurance. They want your Dec page so they can see your coverage and match what you have without having to ask you a bunch of questions that you aren't going to be able to answer easily.

Insurance is highly regulated. Agents don't have the ability to lower the premium to say a dollar less than what you are already paying. Any agent who says they can, run from. They are a scam.

You want that middle number in liability (the per occurrence number) to be more than all your assets. Or as others have stated you want an umbrella policy covering more than you are worth. If they sue and you dont have this protection, you'll be liquidating assets to pay them for their loss.

Source: I've worked in the insurance industry for 20 years designing the very systems agents use to give you a quote.

TJ

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
 
Also, liability isn't expensive unless you have tickets/duis.

It's comprehensive and collision where you pay out the backside.

Drop those if the cars are paid for and you are ok for paying for the fix to your car should you get into an accident, broken into or hit by someone who doesn't have insurance.

TJ

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Wouldn't their health insurance cover medical expenses?
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Yes, and then their insurance will come after you (your insurance) to pay. Higher coverage will also cause your insurance to pay lawyers to defend the claim.
 
Tj1376 said:
Also, liability isn't expensive unless you have tickets/duis.

It's comprehensive and collision where you pay out the backside.

Drop those if the cars are paid for and you are ok for paying for the fix to your car should you get into an accident, broken into or hit by someone who doesn't have insurance.

TJ

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
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We just carry liability. Cars paid off, old, and worth less than any major repair would be.
 
Hair bit north for the highest liability required for the highest state in the US

I carry broad form as insuring liability on a individual vehicle basis I reckon is a scam
 
jsstevens said:
Yes, and then their insurance will come after you (your insurance) to pay. Higher coverage will also cause your insurance to pay lawyers to defend the claim.
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As noted, most states regulate insurance, including auto. Often those regulations impose a duty to defend the insured on the insurer, regardless of limits, and without charging costs of defense against the limits of coverage. However, at mandatory minimum coverage levels, its not at all unreasonable for a claim to max out the limits of coverage, and for the liability of the insured to be clearly established. Without a duty to defend, in those cases it would be rational for the insurer to offer up a check for the limits of coverage before the legal case truly gets rolling, and merely say "Good luck to ya!" That way, they are not on the hook for legal fees as well. A duty to defend prevents them from doing just that. The insurer wants control of the defense anyway to limit their exposure -- otherwise every insured will offer to settle for the limits of coverage regardless of damages.

In more complex circumstances, between more sophisticated parties -- I'm thinking commercial insurance, and legal or medical professional liability coverage -- there is no mandatory duty to defend, though it is often written into the contract. Those will often specify whether or not cost of defense is taken against the limits of coverage.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I hate insurance and insurance companies so much that I shot myself in the foot. I literally found out yesterday I was paying for 2 car insurance policies for the last 6 months. Someone called me I guess and said your policy is expiring can we get you a quote. I guess I liked the quote so I signed up and then my other policy renewed and I didn't realize it. My auto and homeowners keep doubling in spite of no accidents or claims. Its a racket. I guess it irritates me enough that I bury my head in the sand. I wonder if I have a 3rd one I forgot about. Yesterday when I was going through all of this insurance stuff my agent tried to quote me a homeowners policy but he refused to give me a quote without me providing my current company's deceleration. You can't tell me how much your product costs without knowing what your competitor charges? Its maddening.
Click to expand...


I’ve had some issues lately, fraud attempts & similar. Along with that I started to dive into my taxes, including interest payed on a refi last Fall. Lo and behold, besides my new mortgage, my previous was never ‘paid off’, so I have two on auto-pay. This is for that same house. I’ve been in the phone a fair bit, 3 way today with title co & old mortgage co. There are a few things to sort out, mostly on track now, I think.
I also put ‘fraud alerts’ on top of my frozen credit.

It goes without saying I’ll keep a close eye going forward.
 
jsstevens said:
Yes, and then their insurance will come after you (your insurance) to pay. Higher coverage will also cause your insurance to pay lawyers to defend the claim.
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The insurance will provide a defense regardless of the policy limits. That's one of the major reasons to have it.
 
Didn't read all replies here so this may have already been said but state minimums in the U.S. blow my mind. Might as well not be insured at all. In Texas, $30k per person? That's nothing! Sure, their health insurance will pay but they'll go after you to recoup the money if you have any assets worth a damn. $25k for property? Besides cars, there are a lot of other expensive things you can hit. In Canada, minimum liability coverage is $1M. You can increase that to $2M for like an extra $200 per year. I can't imagine it's much more expensive in Texas to go from state minimum to something that would actually protect you in the unlikely event of needing it. I don't know yet though, I still have my Canadian coverage for the time being.
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
Didn't read all replies here so this may have already been said but state minimums in the U.S. blow my mind. Might as well not be insured at all. In Texas, $30k per person? That's nothing! Sure, their health insurance will pay but they'll go after you to recoup the money if you have any assets worth a damn. $25k for property? Besides cars, there are a lot of other expensive things you can hit. In Canada, minimum liability coverage is $1M. You can increase that to $2M for like an extra $200 per year. I can't imagine it's much more expensive in Texas to go from state minimum to something that would actually protect you in the unlikely event of needing it. I don't know yet though, I still have my Canadian coverage for the time being.
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That’s mostly for scams, the guy wearing the neck brace to pick up his new Harley and the like
 
Guessing most of these laws were last updated when 25k could buy a couple new cars.
 
I'm a believer in minimum allowable for the cars/house with an umbrella policy to cover the excess. The umbrella has a minimum for underling insurance but in VA, the state is the same as the umbrella requirement.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Two Questions:

1. Do you carry state mins or more?
As I am adding a 4th person to our policy, Flo from Progressive asked if I want to lover my coverage to state minimums to save money on my premium.
I said "I don't know enough about this, let me ask this flying forum how this works."
She was like. "Makes total sense, I'll wait."

2. Who Pays in the event of an accident? Lets say I am driving and I hit a fire hydrant and one of the passengers in the back seat flies out the window (which was open) and lands in a tree and has to saw one of his own arms off to free himself. The other passenger is trapped and the car is filling with water (I rolled the open window up because it was cold) and struggling to gasp for his last breaths but sadly passes there in the car. The guy in the passenger seat to the right of me has a broken back but doesn't drown because he had a scuba tank with him. I'm fine by the way. Thanks for asking.

Doesn't their health insurance pay their medical bills? My state mins are 30k per person, 60k per accident, and 25k property.
If you drive a car into my house wouldn't my home owner's insurance pay for the damages?

Is there any compelling reason to have more than the mins? I currently carry 100, 300, 250 but I am not sure if that is necessary.

Let me know your thoughts.
I need to get an answer for Flo.
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Way it's been explained to me is you should be insured for as much as all your 'stuff' is worth because that's what they are going to come after. All the insurances I've had have a medical payments coverage. People injured in the accident send the bills to them instead of their health insurance health insurance. Auto insurance pays them up to a certain amount. That happened to me recently. Some one T-boned a car I was in. Their insurance had the medical thing up to $12,000.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Wouldn't their health insurance cover medical expenses?
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Disclaimer: I am not licensed in your state, and I am not your lawyer.

Yes, the health insurer will typically pay the medical bills if covered under their policy. That being said, they will want to be paid back for what they paid. They typically can recover in subrogation what they paid on behalf of their insured if they want to sue you directly, or are entitled to be paid back out of any settlement. In short, just because health insurance pays does not mean that you, the negligent party are off the hool. The good news is they typically have pre-service agreements with their providers, and therefore get the medical bill substantially reduced. The law varies from state to state, but typically what a putative plaintiff would be able to recover from you is the amount actually paid. But again-- I am not your lawyer and I am not licensed in your state.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Need to consider the value of personal assets being protected.
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Again, I am not your lawyer and I am not licensed in your state. That being said, what Let'sgoglying! said is good advice.

The fact of the matter is most plaintiff's lawyers are lazy and they don't want to chase personal assets if they don't have. They really don't want to try a case and then still have to go chase assets. They can do it if they want, but they would rather turn the file and move on. Thus, if the claim is hypothetically worth 1.2M, they will probably settle for $1M if those are the policy limits. So, how much coverage you have often dictates what the case will settle for.

Of course, given your YouTube riches, your IT riches, your family inheritance, and your future pilot riches, you are going to be a target for lawyers. So, I wouldn't skimp if I were you.
 
PPC1052 said:
Again, I am not your lawyer and I am not licensed in your state. That being said, what Let'sgoglying! said is good advice.

The fact of the matter is most plaintiff's lawyers are lazy and they don't want to chase personal assets if they don't have. They really don't want to try a case and then still have to go chase assets. They can do it if they want, but they would rather turn the file and move on. Thus, if the claim is hypothetically worth 1.2M, they will probably settle for $1M if those are the policy limits. So, how much coverage you have often dictates what the case will settle for.

Of course, given your YouTube riches, your IT riches, your family inheritance, and your future pilot riches, you are going to be a target for lawyers. So, I wouldn't skimp if I were you.
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Based on similar information, I've also been told you can easily over insure yourself making yourself a target for suit. If your net worth is less than $100,000, having a million dollar umbrella policy may not be for you. Once you've been sued and that umbrella policy had to pay, you may have trouble getting insurance in the future due to your insurance history.
 
The way it was explained to me, or at least the way I understood it.
After my wife was T-boned on her motorcycle and spent about 3 months in the hospital and rehab facility.
It does vary from state to state, so obviously best to check with someone familiar with that.

In a major accident like that your insurance is pretty much going to say "fine" and pay out the maximum on your insurance, IF the injured party agrees not to sue you. If they decide to sue then your insurance money will go toward your defense, instead of being paid to the injured party.

So the general idea is you want the injured party to do the math and figure out that it is better to take your insurance money and run verses trying to sue for your money or assets. Generally they can sue for anything except your primary residence and or 401K retirement account (maybe others). They could potentially sue for future income, but in practice this is a poor bet for them as If they are going to take 50% of your future income, guess how much reportable future income you are going to have, and they have to work at collecting it.

So generally take your assets value and subtract out the value of your primary residence and 401K and that is probably about how much liability insurance you should have. The injured party should figure out it is much better to just take the money rather than try to pay their attorney to got to court and win to acquire and liquidate your assets they can go after.

From the injured parties side, they will get a check from your insurance company for the limit of your liability insurance. You are correct their insurance should cover their medical expenses if they have medical insurance. But then the insurance company is going to go after their share your insurance pay out. Most common is they will take 33%. The injured parties attorney, will take 30% to 40% (maybe less), and injured party gets the balance. In some cases this insurance might take all of the insurance check, in other cases they may not take any, but those cases are the outliers.

In our case the Insurance company made I typo on the claim for the insurance and even though they told our attorney it would 30%, they typed 10% on the request. Our attorney immediately sent them the check for 10%. When they complained that it was just a typo, the attorney renegotiated so we only paid 15%

Brian
 
I was in a plane crash. I was not PIC at the time nor owner.

My health insurance paid all my, substantial, medical bills. The owner's insurance was the normal aviation policy with 1 million limit, but 100,000 per person. So they paid $100,000. My health insurance was nice and split that payment 80/20 with me and did not go after the estate of the owner.

As to the last post, I have NEVER heard that your insurance coverage goes to defending a lawsuit. That is in done by the insurer to try to avoid paying out the amount of the policy or suit, but they will still pay out to the limit of your insurance. What they try to do is to convince the other party that there is the chance of not getting penny and then possibly having to pay their lawyer.
 
Pinecone said:
I have NEVER heard that your insurance coverage goes to defending a lawsuit. That is in done by the insurer to try to avoid paying out the amount of the policy or suit, but they will still pay out to the limit of your insurance. What they try to do is to convince the other party that there is the chance of not getting penny and then possibly having to pay their lawyer.
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Again this is just my understanding of how it was explained to me in my situation.
One Attorney I consulted with wanted to hire a private investigator to determine the assets of the person that hit my wife. I ended up not using that attorney. It seemed to me it was an average person with a hourly job with a mortgage on their house.

Of course if the insurance company believes the injury claims do not warrant paying the full limit of the policy they will take it court if the injured does not agree with their settlement offer, or more accurately let the injured party take them to court.

In the scenario where the injury is obviously significantly worth more than the insurance policy limits and you have the minimum 60,000 liability policy and they figure out you have 6 million in liquid assets. The attorney's, and it is all about the attorneys, they are really only ones mostly guaranteed to win in these kinds of case, will likely advised to go to court. After all they want their 40% or so. I don't know how the insurance company would handle that. I have been led to believe they could have their attorneys go to court for you. But I could also see the scenario where they might just cut you a check for 60K and tell you to go pay your own attorney.

Brian

 
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