When the next tragedy is caused by the insurance company

While you were driving for home one evening, you see a wayward vehicle ahead of you. You slow down and try to avoid the road hazard but you realize it was too late. And then bam! You hear a loud thud and everything else turns upside down. Before you know it, you have been involved in an auto collision.

If you’re lucky, then it may well just be another fender bender. If you’re not, chances are you suffered some injury. Or worse, it may be permanent.

So you take all the necessary steps to claim from your insurance but to your surprise, they refuse to cover your skyrocketing medical expenses. Another tragedy in the making? Not necessarily, if you know what to do.

The first thing you may have to ask yourself is: am I covered? Many insurance companies offer a variety of insurance packages, depending on the coverage you may want to avail of. In most states, owners of registered vehicles are required to at least obtain a certain amount of insurance, most of the time minimal. The danger is getting minimal insurance is simply that you get what you pay for: the coverage may not be sufficient to cover the damage done to your vehicle or to the injury you suffered.

However, you ask, what is the basic insurance required in most states? It is called liability insurance and it will cover the amount of property damage and medical expenses of other people when you are at fault in an accident. The tricky thing here is that it will cover these damages in the amount stipulated in your policy. These damages include medical bills and lost wages as well as repair and replacement of spare parts of the damaged vehicles (not your own).

There are other kinds of insurance that covers even damage to you. One is called collision insurance, which will cover any damage to your vehicle by shouldering the repairs or “total” your car if it is a complete wreck. This is subject, of course, to any deductible.

Another is called the comprehensive insurance coverage, which covers any damage aside from those caused by accidents and car crashes like theft, fire and other causes. This kind of insurance is of course more expensive.

The other types of insurance are called medical payments, personal injury protection and “no-fault” insurance policies. The first pays for medical expenses when you are injured, including your passengers, regardless of any fault on your side during an accident. The last two are just an expanded medical payment protection policy.

Why is knowledge of these insurance policies important? It is to arm you with the right knowledge in choosing the appropriate insurance policy that is right for the kind of coverage you have in mind. So the next time you get involved in a car accident, you would know your rights against the insurance company.

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