What Do You Know About Auto Insurance? – Part 1 of 4
Most people know that we are required to have auto insurance if we intend to own and license a vehicle. Based on that we locate an insurance source and generally purchase what the agent tells us we need. The insurance industry has convinced us that learning the basic facts are over our heads and that we have to trust their judgment. Well I am here to tell you that is just not so and experience tells me so.
I am like most of you. In the past, I just paid the premium every six months for whatever coverage my agent or carrier told me I needed. Recently I had to learn a hard lesson about car insurance and the lesson has not sat well. Part of the outcome was learning how ignorant and trusting I have been. For all intents and purposes, it appears I am not the only person who is in that boat.
If you have an unlimited source of income, or don’t know and do not want to know, what I am about to tell you will probably not be of interest. However, you might even still find some of the facts interesting if not frustrating.
If you have the inclination you might want to go on the internet and go to your appropriate state website and download and read the motor vehicle code and auto insurance statutes that apply to you. For the most part it is written in layman’s terms and fairly easy to understand.
Because of my recent third-party claim’s experience with USAA I have had to learn far more about the auto insurance industry than I wanted to know and in particular how it applies to where I live, in Florida. Starting with the basics, my research begin with how the state of Florida 2010 statutes defined car insurance.
It reads: Coverage for motorized land vehicles (e.g., passenger type automobiles, pickups, vans, trucks and motorcycles). The coverage can include loss or damage to the vehicle itself (evaluated at replacement or repair damage cost, actual cash value, or agreed value). It can also include loss, liability, or expense as a result of ownership, maintenance or use of any such vehicle. The coverage also includes medical, hospital and surgical benefits to injured persons, funeral and death benefits to survivors irrespective of legal liability if incurred while in, upon, entering into, alighting from, or being struck by a vehicle if such coverage is issued as part of a liability insurance contract.
Continued on the next page
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