It’s frequent data, and customary sense, that having automotive insurance coverage is a good suggestion. It’s much less well-known, nonetheless, that automotive insurance coverage isn’t truly legally required in all states or conditions. There are legally mandated minimal quantities of various kinds of automotive insurance coverage required in virtually all fifty states. New Hampshire and Virginia are two notable exceptions. In Virginia, which means that when you select to pay a yearly Uninsured Motorist Charge of $500, you’re legally allowed to function your car with out automotive insurance coverage.
However do you have to select to? Simply because skipping insurance coverage is authorized on this case doesn’t essentially imply it’s best to. In terms of automotive insurance coverage, it’s most likely in your greatest curiosity to go above and past the letter of the regulation.
In the event you’re on the fence between selecting to pay for automotive insurance coverage or an Uninsured Motorist Charge, learn on! We’ll undergo the benefits and downsides of every choice, in addition to clarify precisely how the Uninsured Motorist Charge works so you can also make an knowledgeable determination.
What various kinds of automotive insurance coverage could be required?
To start with, let’s undergo the various kinds of automotive insurance coverage which may typically be required or really useful. This fashion, you possibly can be taught what’s coated and what’s not, resolve what sorts of insurance coverage you may want, or resolve whether or not you’re keen to go with out.
Generally required sorts of automotive insurance coverage embrace:
Bodily Harm Legal responsibility Insurance coverage
This sort of insurance coverage comes into play when you injure another person in a automotive accident. It’ll pay for the injured celebration’s medical payments so that you just received’t must.
Private Harm Safety
This sort of insurance coverage pays to your medical payments do you have to be injured in an accident. It’ll cowl your passengers’ medical payments if they’re injured as effectively.
Property Injury Legal responsibility Insurance coverage
The place bodily damage legal responsibility insurance coverage covers the prices of an injured celebration’s medical payments, property harm legal responsibility insurance coverage covers the prices to restore any of their property that you just broken in an accident. So, when you trigger an accident and whole somebody’s automotive, any such insurance coverage will assist foot the invoice.
Uninsured Motorist Insurance coverage
Uninsured motorist insurance coverage covers your bills when you’re in an accident attributable to a driver with out automotive insurance coverage.
Collision Protection
Collision protection pays for harm to your car after a automotive accident, regardless of when you or the opposite driver precipitated the crash.
Complete Protection
This sort of insurance coverage protection covers harm to your automotive that happens while you aren’t behind the wheel. So, if somebody backs into your parked automotive or a tree department takes out your windshield in a storm, complete protection can pay for the repairs.
Virtually all US states require a minimal quantity of some or all the sorts of automotive insurance coverage listed on this part. Even when you dwell in New Hampshire or Virginia, the place none of a majority of these insurance coverage are legally required, for most individuals it’s higher to be secure than sorry. Whereas everybody hopes they’ll by no means be in an accident, a lot much less be the reason for one, this stuff can occur to anybody. It’s higher to be protected if it occurs to you.
How does an Uninsured Motorist Charge work?
In the event you don’t assume you want any of the sorts of automotive insurance coverage listed above (although even when you’re the most effective driver on the planet, it’s exhausting to imagine you don’t!), you could be trying into how precisely an Uninsured Motorist Charge works.
Crucial factor to remember about Virginia’s $500 Uninsured Motorist Charge is that that $500 may not be all you need to pay. Selecting to pay this payment signifies that you acknowledge all of the potential dangers of driving with out insurance coverage AND that you just settle for monetary accountability for any prices incurred because of an accident. So, even when you’ve paid your $500, you’re nonetheless on the hook for what may find yourself being enormous sums of cash.
In the event you don’t pay the Uninsured Motorist Charge and select to drive with out insurance coverage anyway, you would be discovered responsible of a Class 3 misdemeanor, lose your driving privileges, have your registration and plates suspended, and be topic to increased future insurance coverage premiums and factors in your driving document.
In the event you select to pay the Uninsured Motorist Charge and drive with out insurance coverage, you may find yourself having to pay for:
Hospital payments
Having to pay to your personal hospital payments will be unhealthy sufficient. In the event you select to drive with out insurance coverage, you’ll have to cowl the medical prices to your passengers as effectively. What’s extra, if you’re discovered to have precipitated an accident and anyone within the different automotive was injured, you would must pay for his or her medical bills, too.
With insurance coverage, your Private Harm Safety and Bodily Harm Legal responsibility insurance coverage would assist cowl these prices.
Car repairs
Most motorists are likely to search for methods to economize on even essentially the most routine automotive upkeep: no driver desires to be caught with an expensive restore invoice for a totaled automotive!
Nevertheless, when you select to drive with out insurance coverage, that’s precisely what may occur. Because you don’t have collision protection, you’ll must foot the invoice to repair your experience your self. That, otherwise you could be caught carpooling to work till you possibly can scrape collectively the money. And, with out Property Injury Legal responsibility insurance coverage, you’ll find yourself having to pay for the opposite driver’s broken automotive as effectively.
What occurs when you get into an accident and neither you nor the opposite driver has automotive insurance coverage?
Briefly, nothing good. In the event you get right into a automotive crash with out insurance coverage, that’s unhealthy sufficient. If the opposite driver can also be uninsured, that’s even worse. With out insurance coverage firms to type issues out in your behalf, you and the opposite driver may find yourself in a prolonged authorized battle to hash out who has to pay for what. So now along with the hefty price of any accidents or repairs, you’ll must spend your priceless money and time on authorized charges and appearances. If there’s a textbook definition of a lose-lose state of affairs, this could be it.
Now, as an insurance coverage firm, we could be only a little bit biased, however we predict automotive insurance coverage is at all times an amazing concept. After studying this publish, we hope you do too!
The way in which we see it, simply because the state of Virginia doesn’t legally require you to have automotive insurance coverage doesn’t imply you shouldn’t. If one thing appears too good to be true, it most likely is — that is often the case with the Uninsured Motorist Charge. Paying this $500 isn’t the low-cost, get-out-of-jail-free card it would look like. At greatest, it’s like utilizing duct tape to carry components of your automotive collectively: it would seem to be a thrifty, artistic repair within the second, however it’s most likely going to price you huge time in the long term.
In the event you do need automotive insurance coverage however aren’t positive what sort and the way a lot you want, you’re not alone. Automotive insurance coverage is complicated, however we’re right here to assist demystify the method. With just some questions on your particular person wants, we are able to present a advice for the kind of coverage that’s best for you.
Get a quote right now and allow us to assist you to get the automotive insurance coverage protection you want!
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