Understanding Car Insurance Coverage

When getting insurance for your vehicle, there are different types available and different things they cover. There are rules and regulations that can change the type of insurance you need and the price that you will pay. How do you mean sense of it all? Here is some information to explain the different kinds of insurance you can buy for your car.

Liability Insurance

Every insured driver will need to have liability insurance. This is insurance that will cover the other party in an accident that you have caused. It is the bare minimum that you can get when purchasing an insurance policy. There are two parts to liability insurance. These are bodily injury liability and property damage liability. Both of these are covered when you have liability insurance, but the amount that the coverage will pay for will depend on the amount of liability insurance you purchase. Anything above the amount not covered by your insurance would need to be paid out of your pocket.

• Bodily Injury Liability Insurance - This will cover costs for the other driver's injuries that are a result of an accident that you have caused. Things covered include medical bills, pain and suffering damage, and loss of income.
• Property Damage Liability Insurance - This will cover costs for the repair of the other driver's vehicle as a result of an accident that you have caused. This coverage will also cover the costs if there was damage to a home or to trees on a homeowner's property due to your car hitting them.

Comprehensive Insurance

This is insurance that will pay for any damages that happen to your own vehicle or another vehicle that you may have been driving at the time of the incident. This does not cover collisions. It does include fire, water damage, and theft.

Collision Insurance

Collision insurance will pay for damages that happen to your vehicle as a result of a collision. If your vehicle is not worth a lot, you may want to drop the collision on it because the amount of the deductible you need to pay if you use it might be higher than the amount of the damage. 

Uninsured Coverage

This is a part of both liability and collision insurance that would cover the cost of the repair of your vehicle if the driver who hit it was uninsured.

SR-22

This is a document that your insurance company, like Illinois Automobile Insurance, will provide to vouch for you if you had received previous moving violations. The law requires that you hold this paper and show it to a police officer along with your insurance card if you get pulled over. It is not really an insurance plan but an assurance from the insurance that you are not a risk to other drivers.