Auto insurance is basically comprised of four main elements. And every auto insurance agent should know exactly how to explain and present these four elements to their potential customers. For people aren’t eager to buy something they don’t understand and they need a qualified person to explain them the details. Well, if your auto insurance agent isn’t good at making things clear and you still wonder what’s there in your policy that you are paying for, we have taken our time to describe briefly and clearly the most important aspects of auto insurance you should be aware of.

Liability coverage

Liability coverage is the most important and frequently used types of auto insurance coverage. It pays for the costs you may be subjected to when damaging property (read: cars) or injuring other people in accidents. For example if you run into a Chevy with a old man driving it, your liability coverage will pay for the injuries caused to the man as well as the damage caused to his car.

Liability coverage usually deals with so-called “split limits”. For example, you can see that your policy has a bodily injury limit of $100,000 / $300,000; while the property damage limit is $50,000. This means that a person injured in an accident can be payed with up to $100,000 of bodily injury, while $300,000 is the maximum amount for a single accident. for each accident. The property damage limit refers for a single accident.

Medical payments coverage

Medical payments coverage is somewhat the opposite to liability coverage because it pays for your or your family members’ (who are specified in the policy) medical services. This type of coverage imposes the auto insurance company to pay for your ambulance, medical, hospital, surgical and sometimes funeral expenses if they were caused by the injuries you have taken while driving the car specified in your car insurance policy. Another difference with liability coverage is that you will be paid for your expenses regardless of whether you were at fault in the accident or not.

Uninsured motorists coverage

This type of coverage pays for damages caused by unidentified or uninsured drivers. Let’s take the above mentioned example with the old man. If it was him who hit your car and then you find out he has no auto insurance, it is your uninsured motorist coverage that pays for the damage. It is also used in cases of hit-and-run drivers who aren’t identified. In such situations you practically have no information to demand any payments, thus the uninsured motorist coverage kicks in.

Coverage for your car damage

This coverage is used to pay for the damage your own car was subjected to during the accident. This type of coverage is usually divided in two parts: collision coverage, and other-than-collision coverage (also referred to as comprehensive coverage). As the name suggests collision coverage pays for the damage resulted in collisions (hard to guess, isn’t it?). Comprehensive coverage reimburses the loss caused by things such as explosions, earthquakes, fire, flood, theft, vandalism, and animal accidents.