Car Insurance....PSA!!!

[Babidol]

I know this is off topic for this room but it gets tons of traffic and after the week I've had, the stress that has come of all this....I just want you all to be aware of this.

Many of you know I was in a car accident last week. The accident was my fault. Which means, I was liable for not only my car, but the other two cars involved. We didn't realize it at the time but we were only carrying state minimum insurance, 25/50/25. What that means is we only had $25,000 in liability, $25,000 for medical, and a total payout of $50,000 on the claim. And on face value, it sounds like a lot. It's not! We were lucky. I hit two cars and totaled them that weren't worth a whole lot, $8,300 and $19,000 but we still went over our max liability coverage by $2,300. We now owe our insurance company $2,300 for those cars! I say I'm lucky because had I hit a Cadillac Escalade, a $60,000 car and the $19,000 Altima, we would owe our insurance company almost $50,000!!! We would be filing bankruptcy or losing our home over this. The difference between my state minimum insurance plan and the new 100/300/100 plan we now have is.......$45 for six months!!! Seriously, that's $7.50 per month guys. You pay that for coffee and a donut!

Please, please, please check your insurance coverage. If you are carrying state minimum then up it to 100/300/100. There's just no excuse for not having it. Let my ignorance be your lesson and make sure you and your family are covered. Had someone been seriously injured the outcome could have been devastating for us. We ended up so lucky in so many ways on this one. My car has also been totaled. But we are safe, we are lucky, and no one was injured!

[SarahBaby1]

I am so glad that you are ok and that it wasnt worse than it was. Ill check with dh about our coverage. Thank you for the psa! Gl!

[LanceBabe]

I'll have to point this out to DH. He always insists on having just the state minimum coverages. I guess we've been lucky. The first few years that Erin was driving, she totaled several cars, but none of them were worth much to begin with, so our insurance coverage was sufficient. I'll tell him your story. Thanks!

[hotpinkmomma0811]

Thanks for sharing the information!

[Babidol]

My car had full coverage. It was my liability that was severely short!

[LanceBabe]

My car had full coverage. It was my liability that was severely short!

DH carries no coverage on our own cars, except the one that we're still paying for. So our insurance didn't cover OUR cars that Erin totaled, just the OTHER person's car. In that respect, I guess she only TOTALED one other car besides our own, although she damaged a couple of others that our insurance did cover.

[macksmom]

Thank you for the info. I will check what we have....

So sorry for your ordeal but happy it wasn't worse and everyone is safe!

ETA: Looks like we have it Thanks for the info.

[JJorn]

I'll be checking ours, too. I think that we have good coverage but it never hurts to check.

[Babidol]

It was so stupid of us to not have the right coverage. It's just something that had never come up because we assumed we had a good policy until we needed to use it. I'm praying state farm won't drop us!

[Adhafera]

Thanks for sharing this!

[Cosmosmom]

Wow. I'm having my DH check but I think that we have higher. I think my state has a higher minimum but for sure double checking!

Ok he checked. I guess we have 250/500/100. We use an insurance broker and I think that was what was recommended.

I'm so glad that it wasn't more for you and even more glad that you and the baby are ok!

[anonsouthernbell]

I'll be checking ours, too. I think that we have good coverage but it never hurts to check.

Me too...

[sunkiss]

I've been on the other side of an accident, where I was injured and not at fault. I was going 60 when a car pulled in front of me without even looking. I was also hit from behind. I had whiplash and a torn ligament in my shoulder as well as lots of chronic pain in the years to follow. Unfortunately, all three drivers involved had the same insurance carrier. We ended up screwed because we all had state minimums too. I had full coverage. My injuries, pain management, shoulder surgery, etc added up to far more than we settled for. We had to hire an attorney more than a year later. Our problem was the under-insured motorist coverage. With the state minimum, we got $25k in u/i coverage. Apparently, in our state (and many others), if I have $25k in u/i coverage and the driver who caused it has $25k liability, they cancel each other out! WTF? Why do people pay a part of their premium for this (around $8/mo) when it will never actually benefit them??? We ended up with a very large settlement even though techically, they were operating withing the law. They obviously agree that what they do is wrong and were willing to pay us to avoid court, but the laws are still the same. There are MANY suits just like mine starting to make headway and hopefully the laws will be changed, but beware that this stuff happens a lot! Do not think twice about it...get the higher coverages. We found the exact same thing, that it was so little more a month and we switched right after the accident in 2005. We finally settled in Dec. 2011!

[handsdown]

I am so glad to hear that you are okay.

This is interesting for me to read because in Michigan we have no-fault insurance. Everyone is required to cover their car at least with liability and if you are in an accident your own insurance pays for your car and any medical expenses. Our governor really wants to reform our insurance to no longer be no fault but I'm not so sure after reading about your experience.

[wannabmomof3]

Wow. I'm so glad everything is okay. I'll definitely be checking on mine.

[Babidol]

Sunkiss We were just talking about how we didn't understand how much underinsured and uninsured motorist would cover. We plan to sit down with our agent and ask. In the end, I'm not sure that any coverage is enough with the right accident and injuries. But the least we can all do is try and be responsible. We are also considering going to the 250/500/100 but we need to see how much our rates go up and what the premiums on our new car will be. At least with 100/300 I'm much better insured. If you can afford they also do a $1 million umbrella policy which would be awesome and would cover our homeowners and cars.

[Racegirl766k]

We carry the highest coverage avaialable on all our cars. It even has 5m in medical coverage on it, and it was only $4 a month more then state minumum...

[TripMomma]

I think we carry more coverage, but I will make sure. I am so glad it wasn't worse for you guys.