Nov/110
Minimum Car Insurance Requirements
Any vehicle that is driven on the road must be covered by auto insurance. Car insurance contains a number of protections for the driver and his or her passengers. Depending on your state, it may include coverage for your injury costs if you are hurt in an accident, and also coverage to pay for the other party’s injuries and damages if you are found to be at fault. These are all important protections that may seem unnecessary most of the time, but if you have an accident the proper coverage can save you much personal, financial, and legal grief.
What is the Minimum Coverage?
The minimum insurance that you must carry on your vehicle depends upon the state in which your vehicle is registered. Each state has its own insurance laws, which determine the mandatory minimums for insurance coverage. As an example, the minimum coverage requirement for Illinois is outlined below:
Bodily Injury Liability: This portion of coverage is used to pay for injury costs of the other party, if you are involved in an accident and are deemed to be at fault. Liability coverage protects you from being sued for injury costs. The minimum coverage required is $20,000 per person or up to $40,000 for an accident. Property Damage Liability: This type of coverage pays for damage to the other party’s vehicle if you are found to be at fault in an accident. The minimum amount of insurance that you must carry is $15,000. Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury: This coverage is used to pay for your injury costs if you are hurt by an uninsured motorist. Since an uninsured motorist has no liability coverage to pay for your injuries, your own insurance company will pay for your injuries under this coverage. The minimum that you must carry is $20,000 per person and $40,000 for an accident. These minimum insurance limits are designed to protect you as a driver or passenger when you are involved in an accident. While these coverages are important, you may opt to purchase additional coverage to protect yourself and your vehicle under other scenarios. For example, collision coverage is an optional insurance that you may elect to have to cover your vehicle damages if you are in an accident that cannot be deemed the other party’s fault. Likewise, comprehensive coverage protects your vehicle in non-collision accidents, paying for damage caused by floods, fires, vandalism, and more.
For More Information
To learn more about car insurance minimums and other coverage options that are available to you, please visit the website of the Chicago car insurance experts of Insure on the Spot today.
Oct/110
Car Insurance For Young Females at Cheap Rates
Purchasing insurance of various kinds is very important in order to reduce the risk related to the future. Insurance is so important that you must have it for driving the car on road. Every vehicle which runs on the road always has a risk of getting damaged by some kind of accident. If a car which has insurance gets damaged in an accident, then the cost of the damages is paid by insurance company. It is very easy to get your car insured at cheap rates for young females. Cheap young female car insurance is offered by a lot of insurance companies.
There is a very valid reason for this. Actually statistics prove that female car drivers are more responsible as compared to male drivers. Every insurance company wants to take only calculated risk. The lesser the risk associated with an insurance policy, the lesser the cost of premium charged by the insurance company. It means that the amount of premium charged by insurance companies is low in those cases where there are very less chances of a situation where the company needs to pay the insured amount.
It is reported by various studies that female drivers drive very cautiously and very less road accidents are caused by female drivers. Therefore females can get their cars insured at low rates easily. Another thing which should be kept in mind is that cheap young female car insurance can be purchased by those female drivers who have very good experience of driving cars. An older age indicates that a person has more experience of driving. Generally, young females pay more premium amount for vehicle insurance than those females who are older. If you are young and want to buy vehicle insurance at cheap rates then you should assure the car insurance company that you are experienced in driving car and very responsible as well.
Feb/110
Texas Car Insurance Requirements
In regards to car insurance requirements in Texas, you must have a minimum of $15,000 to cover damages an accident causes other property; $20,000 to cover any bodily injury or death of one person per accident; and $40,000 to cover any bodily injury or death of two or more persons per accident. You can meet the Texas car insurance requirements by purchasing a policy from a car insurance company licensed to do insurance business in Texas, or you may want to post a self-bond – set aside enough money to meet the car insurance requirements in Texas.
Self-bonding, or self-insuring, to meet the Texas car insurance requirements does have its advantages. First, you do not have to worry about whether or not it is going to be difficult to get insurance – if you are providing it, it is already there! You also do not have to concern yourself with premiums, making payments on time, or renewal and cancellation in the matter of being self-insured.
When you meet the Texas car insurance requirements with a self-bond or self-insurance, you are also free to purchase additional car insurance coverage from a traditional car insurance company. By keeping your self-insurance stash in mind, you can pick and choose what car insurance coverage you want to purchase.
Self-bonding, or self-insuring, is not actually the most efficient way to meet the car insurance requirements in Texas, but it is an option – an option that many people choose. The most common reason people choose the option of self-bonding to satisfy the Texas car insurance requirements is because they feel they are uninsurable. A bad driving record, a flawed credit report, and a sketchy history of making payments are all factors Texans believe make them uninsurable; however, these are factors that can and do improve in time, and the self-bonded individual may want to switch to a traditional car insurance policy in Texas once these factors have improved.
Dec/100
Car Insurance – Lending Your Car Could Land You in Jail
How many times have you said to the wife, children or a friend ‘take my car’ and not thought any more of it? Even if it’s just a short trip down the road to the shops, you and the person you lend your car to, may be breaking the law! Furthermore if the person you lend the car to, in turn lends the car to another, you will be held liable for any damages caused by the other party, whether you were aware of their use or not.
If you own a car and decide to lend it to another person, it is your responsibility to check that the person you lend it to have adequate car insurance and that their cover extends to driving other vehicles. If you fail to make reasonable checks to verify these details you could be liable for subsequent damage that the person you lent it to causes, and indeed, you may find yourself on the end of a police prosecution for allowing an uninsured driver to use a motor vehicle contrary of section 143 of the Road Traffic Act. It is also you responsibility to ensure that the person you lend it to does not permit others to drive it.
In the United Kingdom, this principle was first established in UK law back in 1934 in the case of Monk v Warbey and Others. Mr Warbey owned a car which was insured to permit driving by himself and other members of his family. He lent it to his friend Mr Knowles who in turn lent it to a Mr May to drive. At some time during use of the car Mr May was involved in an accident for which he was deemed responsible, with a car driven by Mr Monk. Neither May nor Mr Knowles had insurance for third party risks and neither had the means or funds to satisfy the judgement in court against them. It was held that Mr Warbey had originally committed a breach of duty of sub section 1 of section 143 of the Road Traffic Act, by parting with the control of the car to a person who was not insured, and he was therefore held liable for all damages and costs.
It was found in court that Mr Warbey had been informed prior to parting with the Vehicle that neither Mr Knowles nor Mr May had adequate car insurance covering third party risks and had taken no steps to remedy this. Counsel for Warbey argued that the car accident involving May was too far removed from Warbey’s breach of the statute to make Warbey liable for damages to the third party. The Judge disagreed and Warbey was found liable, and the principle enacted by this case remains in UK law to the current day. Up until this point in time the Act did not extend liability to users of cars to third parties, beyond the requirements of common law, but the decision in this particular case imposes upon the owner of a car, whether they have car insurance or not, an additional duty to injured third parties and enables any third party to recover damages from the car owner who permits his car to be used in such a way, knowingly or not.
The only exception to this rule is in the case of employees using a car owned by their employer, where the person driving the car had reasonable grounds to believe that insurance was in force when the used the car.
It would therefore be very prudent if you checked the levels of cover of your own car insurance policy before agreeing to the use of your vehicle by another, and indeed certify that they are covered by either your own or their current car insurance. Failure to do so could land you in the courts!
Oct/100
Car Insurance For Borrowed Cars
Do you need temporary car insurance if you borrow somebody’s car? Generally, if the owner of the car allowed you to drive it and the reason you drove it were for non-commercial reasons, the car insurance of the owner will cover you. However, it can help to have your own car insurance with a decent amount of liability coverage. Let’s say that you are found to be at fault in an accident while driving a friend’s car. You are responsible for $20,000 in damages to another car. If your friend’s property liability coverage is only $15,000, you are responsible for that additional $5,000. However, if your own property damage liability is higher than $20,000, there is no reason to worry about the extra cost.
If you don’t own a car you don’t have any coverage that transfers over to the borrowed car. You can protect yourself by getting a nonowners policy, which is much cheaper than normal car insurance and gives your liability protection. You have to keep in mind that liability coverage does not protect you, but those around you.
Okay, we’ve talked about damage done to other cars, but what about damage done to the borrowed car itself in the event of an accident (if you are found to be the guilty party)? If your friend has collision and/or comprehensive coverage, you needn’t worry about paying for damage done to your friend’s car. Furthermore, it is very likely that if you have your own collision and/or comprehensive coverage, it will transfer over to the borrowed person’s car.
Before you drive somebody’s car, always make sure that you have their consent. If you don’t, you can get in big trouble.