How Much Car Insurance Coverage Would You Recommend?
Transcript:
Hi, I'm Jared Richards. Hi, I'm Jared Richards. I'm one of the partners here at Clear Counsel Law Group. Now, one of our readers has recently asked us how much insurance coverage he should have on his car. It's an interesting question because there are many different types of insurance coverage you can have on your car. There's insurance coverage that will cover the property damage that you cause if you're at fault. There's insurance coverage that will cover property damage done to your car even if it's your fault. There is other coverage that will cover your car if it's somebody else's fault and they don't have enough or they don't have any insurance. That's for the property damage. Let's talk about injury.
Now, it's the same idea. There is liability insurance that's going to cover you if you hurt somebody else. There's uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that covers you if somebody else hurts you. Then there's MedPay. MedPay simply pays for medical bills. Now I want to talk about how much coverage we have in liability. The answer, I think, is having as much as you can afford. Now, it's tempting sometimes to either not buy insurance, which is just wrong, I think it's immoral to not buy insurance, or to simply go with the state minimums. I think that's also problematic, and possibly also a moral issue.
Now, I understand there are budgetary issues that every family has to deal with. Sometimes, realistically, minimum policies is all that the family can possibly afford. Even if you had the best budgeter examining and altering their budget, they would still put them on a 15/30, a minimum policy. If you have more money, and getting more insurance is not relatively all that much more expensive, buying is helps two people. One, it helps protect you. I had somebody come in recently and say that they had been in a car accident and somebody was suing them. They had assets that were exposed. If you have assets, if you have a lot of money in the bank account, if you have property, if you have real estate rental property, if you have other investments, you need to have insurance. You should also talk about it to an attorney, and you can come talk to our asset protection department, about how to set up those assets so they are protected.
Let's move on to what I view as a moral issue of protecting others if it's your fault. The idea is that none of us wants to cause an accident, none of us. It's so easy to do it. Some are from sheer stupidity. They're doing things that they shouldn't be doing: drinking driving, things like that. Some of them are just simple mistakes. We all mistakes when driving. Luckily, for most of us, we don't make mistakes when somebody's in our way. But people screw up, and it's an accident and people get hurt. Now if you find yourself in that situation where you have seriously hurt somebody, don't you want to be in a position where you can offer up your own insurance policy? You know it's not going to make it right. You know it's not going to bring them back their legs or make them work again. It's not going to make it better. It's not really going to truly make it even, but it's the best you can do.
If you're sitting on a 15/30 policy and, heaven forbid, you nod off at the wheel or you over-adjust your car and you over-adjust your car and you make a mistake that anybody can make, and you kill somebody or you paralyze them for life, or you otherwise seriously, seriously hurt them, you want to be in a position where you can make it as right as possible. For those that have financial ability, I really encourage go buy at least $100,000 of coverage, at least, preferably 250. I've even seen a 500/500 policy. Now on top of that, both to protect yourself and to protect others, umbrella policies are very inexpensive. Purchasing a million dollars in coverage on top of your car insurance policy for just negligence, it's a very affordable prospect. It protects your assets and it fulfills your duty to try to make things right if you have committed a wrong, even if it's accidental.
I'm not selling insurance here, but you may want to talk to your insurance agent and make sure that your limits are appropriate to protect you, to protect your family, and to protect the other people that are on the road around you. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call. Thanks for watching this video, and we'll see you in the next video.
