This is Vaden Warren with the Warren Firm in Charlottesville, Virginia. I wanted to discuss with you a little bit on understanding your automobile insurance policy.
One of the most frustrating things for me as a Charlottesville and Virginia personal injury attorney is how many people do not understand what kind of coverage they have on their automobile policy. You hear commercials on T.V. every day that Geico, State Farm, Allstate and Progressive will save you hundreds of dollars a month on your insurance bill. This may or may not be true. To understand, you have to figure out whether these insurance companies are comparing the same policy and the same benefit that you already have.
What I see more and more that these companies are doing is selling you the smallest policy that Virginia law allows, that is a $25,000 insurance policy. A $25,000 policy, while the minimum in Virginia, is simply not enough to protect you and your family.
So I want to discuss with you what you need to discover when purchasing your automobile insurance. In order to do that I have a real policy that is issued by an insurance company. I have removed all of the names of the insurance company and the insured to protect everyone’s privacy, but I want to go line through line so that you understand what you’re looking at. You policy will not look identical to this, unless it’s the same insurance company, but it will look very similar.
So, the first line is liability and bodily injury. As I told you, Virginia law only requires a $25,000 minimum. The policy we’re looking at is a 100,000/300,000 dollar policy. What that means is, this provides you if you harm someone, you have insurance coverage of up to $100,000 per person that you might injure with a total of $300,000 per incident. So, for example, if you caused significant injuries to two different people and their case was worth more than $100,000, each of them would only be entitled to $100,000 from your insurance company. You would personally be for any verdict in excess of the $100,000. So as you can quickly see, even a $100,000 policy is probably not enough.
The next line on here says medical payments, $10,000. The medical payments portion of your policy costs extra, and you do not have to carry that on your insurance policy, but what it will do is pay up to $10,000 of medical bills that you might receive from an automobile accident. It does not matter who caused the accident, whether you caused your own injuries, or someone else caused them to you, your policy would still provide you will $10,000 worth of insurance coverage. Incidentally, if you have more than one policy on the car, for example, if you have three cars, you actually multiply the $10,000 by three and you actually have $30,000 of medical expense coverage.
Next on here is the $250 deductible collision. What that means is if you get into an accident and damage your car, your insurance company will pay for it, but they will only pay for anything over $250, meaning you’ll have to pay $250, and they’ll pay anything beyond that to repair your car.
The next and last line that I want to point out to you on this policy is the uninsured motor vehicle bodily injury. It’s 100,000/300,000. You’ll notice that those are the same numbers of liability bodily injury insurance that was covered, and that’s usually how it’s sold in Virginia. If you get a 100,000/300,000 policy for the liability, you will also get that for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.
Now this is a very important part of your insurance policy. The reason it’s so important is that if someone hits you and causes you a significant injury and keeps you out of work for a good amount of time, and they don’t have any insurance, what are you going to do? Well without this coverage, you would simply have to get a verdict against the person that hurt you, but if they don’t make any money, or they don’t have any assets, you’re never going to collect anything. So this policy, this uninsured motorist coverage provides you coverage. Your insurance company steps into the place of the person who didn’t have any insurance, and your insurance company will pay the claim or the verdict against that person.
Now interestingly enough, your insurance company would pay you and then turn around and go try to collect the money from the person who caused the injury. But you must understand that just because it’s your insurance company does not mean that they are going to work with you and just agree with everything you say. You will be in an adversarial relationship with your insurance company, and I can assure you that they are going to work to pay you as little as possible. So that’s the uninsured coverage. The other is the underinsured coverage.
So, let’s give an example that someone runs into you, causes you a significant injury and your case is worth $125,000. Let’s say that the person that caused the accident only had $25,000 of insurance coverage, which is as we discussed the minimum in Virginia. So, their insurance company would pay $25,000, your insurance company would pay $75,000, getting you to a total of $100,000 in coverage and then the person that caused the injury would be responsible to you for the remaining $25,000.
This is the basics of understanding your insurance policy. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact my office or send us an email. What I would tell you to consider is that auto insurance after you get beyond the $25,000 minimum is fairly inexpensive. I would certainly recommend to you that you would consider having at least $300,000 of automobile insurance that protects you in case you’re hit by an uninsured or an underinsured, and it also protects you if heaven forbid that you make a mistake and cause an accident and cause injury to someone else. Most people only look at their insurance policy after they’ve been in an accident, and that is simply too late. I ask you to take a look at your policy and contact your insurance company to see what the cost of increasing your limits to at least $300,000 would be.
In Virginia, it is not illegal to drive without insurance. Many drivers do not have insurance or do not have enough insurance. You want to make sure your car insurance policy limits are as high as you can afford. The truth of the matter is that increasing the amount of your coverage does not significantly increase your premiums. Many people in Virginia are seriously injured by car crashes and end up losing significant amounts of money because the driver at fault did not carry enough insurance.
The only way to be sure that there is enough overall insurance to protect you and your family is to have adequate insurance on your own vehicle. Most drivers have the minimum amount required, which is $25,000.00 in Virginia. The medical costs associated with a car accident injury can quickly exceed that amount.
The following three examples help demonstrate the need to have high uninsured and under-insured motorist coverage. Adding this coverage can help you and your family if you ever suffer personal injury from a car accident. In each example it is assumed that you were injured in an auto accident and the Defendant is at fault for the accident. It is also assumed that you had substantial injuries and extensive medical bills with a resulting case value of $300,000.
You have a $25,000 policy.
The Defendant’s insurance company would be responsible for $25,000
Your insurance company would be responsible for $0.
Even though you were entitled to $300,000 you would only recover $25,000 from insurance, leaving you owing medical bills.
You have a $50,000 policy.
The Defendant’s insurance company would be responsible for $25,000
Your insurance company would be responsible for $25,000.
Even though you were entitled $300,000, you would only recover $50,000 from insurance before paying medical bills and other expenses.
You have a $300,000 policy.
The Defendant’s insurance company would be responsible for $25,000.
Your insurance company would be responsible for $275,000.
You would recover the full $300,000.
These examples demonstrate why you must protect yourself by carrying enough automobile insurance coverage. These examples only speak to the insurance available and do not include payments that could possibly be owed to you by the individual driver. The chance that this coverage will be needed is slim, but if you ever do need it, it is well worth the small increase in your premium.
Typically, a person’s automobile accident insurance covers all the elements of damages a person faces after an injury. However, there are two different things that must be looked at with car accident insurance and recoverable compensation.
The first element is property damage. In some states, there is no-fault insurance, but this is not available in Virginia. If another driver drives negligent and runs into their car, the other driver and their insurance company are responsible to pay them for their property damage. They are also responsible for paying all of the injury damages, the non-economic damages, and the economic damages.
There as a good chance after a car crash injury that you could recover financial compensation from the responsible driver’s insurance company. To learn more about what damages insurance covers in Charlottesville car accident cases, you may wish to consult a dedicated car crash lawyer. By working with a local car accident attorney, you could be sure that you do not give up any compensation you are owed during negotiation with the insurance company.
The insurance adjusters will do everything they can to minimize the amount of money that they must pay out to a victim in a claim. Therefore, they will often try to get the victim to make mistakes in their statement or otherwise get them to admit partial fault. In other situations, they may offer a settlement and offer it quickly, but the settlement is almost always far less than what the case is worth.
To preserve their rights to a claim, it is wise for plaintiffs to say nothing to the other driver’s insurance company without consulting an attorney. A lawyer could apply their experience to prevent any missteps that might reduce an award or bar a person from collecting compensation.
Non-economic damages are meant to serve as compensation for a victim’s intangible losses such as pain and mental anguish, the injury and its effect on your health, inconvenience, and other difficult to calculate issues. The effects that the injuries have had on the victim make a big difference in the value of a settlement or compensatory award. If a plaintiff will be affected by these injuries for the rest of their lives, they should expect to receive a higher award than if they were to heal quickly.
Virginia has no caps on non-economic damages or economic damages in car accident cases. There is only one cap in Virginia that applies to car collision cases. That is the punitive damages cap of $350,000.00. However, from a practical standpoint, there are caps on what a person could recover. Those caps are normally the amount of insurance coverage that’s available in a case.
Most people do not have the ability to pay $10,000.00, $20,000.00, $40,000.00, $50,000.00 out of their pocket to someone that they hurt in a car accident. They rely on their insurance to do it. If they don’t have enough insurance, they’re typically not in a financial situation to pay anything above the insurance policy limits.
After a crash and injury, you may be owed monetary compensation to get your life back on track. If you were injured by a negligent or reckless driver, you will likely need to seek compensation from their insurance carrier. The insurance companies will work against you every step of the way to try to limit the amount of compensation you are able to receive. To learn more about what damages insurance covers in Charlottesville car accident cases, it is important that you contact an attorney right away. Do not speak with a defendant’s insurance company or sign a settlement until you have retained legal counsel. Call The Warren Firm right away to get started.
