Auto Insurance

Introduction to Auto Insurance
Liability Coverage
Physical Damage Coverage
California Law
“Full Coverage” Insurance

Introduction to Auto Insurance

Driving a vehicle has been of the great inventions by man. It has also created a risk of doing damage to property and causing injury. Auto insurance helps protect you from financial loss as a result of an accident with your vehicle. Auto insurance policies offer liability protection from being found at-fault in accident, as well as physical damage protection to provide coverage for the value of your vehicle.

Liability Coverage

Liability insurance is arguably the most important part of auto insurance. Liability offers financial protection for up to the limit of selected coverage of bodily injury and property damage to others caused by you in an accident with your vehicle. Most states require a minimum liability insurance to be in place before a vehicle can be legally driven on public roads, and fines of driving without insurance can be heavy.

Uninsured Motorist coverage, is an optional part available to purchase that will provide protection from drivers who do not have liability insurance, or do not have enough liability insurance. Uninsured Motorist has available protection for bodily injury and property damage.

Medical Payments coverage provides a small amount of immediate coverage for medical payments regardless of fault. Medical Payments is also an optional part of Liability Coverage.

Physical Damage Coverage

Physical Damage coverage protects the actual value of your vehicle at the time of loss. Physical Damage has two parts Collision, which provides coverage in case your vehicle hits another car or object. The second part is Comprehensive Coverage or sometimes known as Other-Than-Collision, which provides protection for loss from other than collision like fire, theft, or vandalism. Collision and Comprehensive coverage have an out-of-pocket deductible that is met by you first before remaining amount of damage is covered by the insurance company. The deductible is usually $500 or $1000, but can be lower or higher. Picking a higher deductible will lower your insurance premium, ask your agent to give you some options for comparison.

California Law

California law requires all drivers to carry minimum liability coverage of $15,000 per person for bodily injury, $30,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $5,000 for property damage. The law was founded in the 1960’s and since then has not been updated. California is one of the most litigious states, and the minimum limits satisfies the DMV, but you may be held liable in civil suit for any excess damages above what your liability limit is. We recommend getting higher liability limits to offer greater protection for protection against civil law suits.

“Full Coverage” Insurance

“Full Coverage” is not an actual insurance term, and is open to interpretation depending on the individual’s idea of insurance protection limit. To get the right amount of protection, we recommend doing a thorough personalized protection review of all parts of auto insurance with a licensed independent agent before you purchase an auto insurance policy or renew your current plan.