As a Florida native, I know how much car insurance costs. But it is very important that you protect yourself and your family.
Until you have been involved in an accident where the other driver has no insurance, or not enough insurance, you may not understand the troubles you will go through. These can be broken down into two categories, property damage/vehicle and injury.
When it comes to property damage, I would like you to consider this scenario:
You are rear ended and pushed into another vehicle by a driver.
You did nothing wrong and were hit from behind. If the other driver as low property damage coverage—there may not be enough coverage to fix your car or for you to receive a rental car. This leaves you without a car until all the damage can be assessed or worst case, with inadequate compensation to repair your car or pay it off.
You never want to be left waiting for the at-fault drivers insurance to fix your vehicle, assess the damage or give you a rental car.
It is important you purchase collision coverage. Collision coverage will fix your vehicle, or pay the actual cash value of the vehicle in the event the car is declared a total loss.
We would also recommend purchasing rental car coverage. This typically increases your premium only by a small amount but will provide you with a rental car when the other insurance is dragging their feet, or has inadequate property damage coverage to repair all of the damage caused in the accident.
For additional injury related coverage it comes in several forms. There is bodily injury coverage which will protect you, your family, and your assets if you injure someone in an accident. This will also allow you to purchase uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage will compensate you for your injuries when the other driver has no bodily injury coverage (uninsured) or not enough bodily injury coverage (underinsured).
We recommend purchasing as much bodily injury coverage and uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage as you can afford.
If the other driver has no bodily injury coverage, and you have no uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage then we would have to determine if the other driver has personal assets to collect in order to compensate you for your injuries. Unfortunately, the average person who does not purchase bodily injury coverage—does not have assets we can go after. That means, you cannot collect compensation for your injuries.
If you would like to speak to the lawyers at Piedra | Injury Law to determine if you are adequately protected by your auto insurance, please email Jay@PiedraLondon.com to set a time to discuss your options.
