by dave18 » Sun May 02, 2010 08:20 pm
Hello everyone!
I have a question about potential gaps in my auto coverage. My goal with auto insurance for me and my wife is to protect our assets -- primarily our home -- in the event that something catastrophically expensive happens behind the wheel. Also, there are a lot of people who chronically don't pay attention behind the wheel, so we want to be protected against them because there are a lot of them!
We have Liability Bodily Injury (BI) coverage of $250K/$500K and Property Damage (PD) coverage of $200K. We have Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM) BI coverage of $250K/$500K and PD coverage of $3500. We had comprehensive coverage for Actual Cash Value with a $250 deductible for the more expensive car.
We don't carry collision coverage since one car was worth about $5000 (it just got totaled and we haven't replaced it yet) and the other is worth about $1000.
I never noticed this before, but in the event that we were hit by someone with no insurance, we had a gap between our $3500 worth of UM PD coverage and the $5000 value of our car. That's not too bad, but if we end up buying a $7500 car and don't carry collision, that's quite a gap.
I never thought about this before, but in general, people who finance cars or have cars that are worth a considerable amount of money are covered against UM PD using their own collision coverage, right? If we don't have collision coverage, our UM PD policy coverage should be at least the value of our most expensive car, right?
Also, my wife and I are into cycling and our bicycles and car carrier cost in excess of $4000. I don't know what they are worth today, but that property is often attached to one of our cars. Is this something that would potentially fall under UM PD as well?
Since many here are insurance experts, are there any other potential gaps in our coverage? I know that many people talk about umbrella policies, but I'm not sure if we need that. Unless, of course, there are other gaps that I'm unaware of.
Thanks for any advice!
-Dave
I have a question about potential gaps in my auto coverage. My goal with auto insurance for me and my wife is to protect our assets -- primarily our home -- in the event that something catastrophically expensive happens behind the wheel. Also, there are a lot of people who chronically don't pay attention behind the wheel, so we want to be protected against them because there are a lot of them!
We have Liability Bodily Injury (BI) coverage of $250K/$500K and Property Damage (PD) coverage of $200K. We have Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM) BI coverage of $250K/$500K and PD coverage of $3500. We had comprehensive coverage for Actual Cash Value with a $250 deductible for the more expensive car.
We don't carry collision coverage since one car was worth about $5000 (it just got totaled and we haven't replaced it yet) and the other is worth about $1000.
I never noticed this before, but in the event that we were hit by someone with no insurance, we had a gap between our $3500 worth of UM PD coverage and the $5000 value of our car. That's not too bad, but if we end up buying a $7500 car and don't carry collision, that's quite a gap.
I never thought about this before, but in general, people who finance cars or have cars that are worth a considerable amount of money are covered against UM PD using their own collision coverage, right? If we don't have collision coverage, our UM PD policy coverage should be at least the value of our most expensive car, right?
Also, my wife and I are into cycling and our bicycles and car carrier cost in excess of $4000. I don't know what they are worth today, but that property is often attached to one of our cars. Is this something that would potentially fall under UM PD as well?
Since many here are insurance experts, are there any other potential gaps in our coverage? I know that many people talk about umbrella policies, but I'm not sure if we need that. Unless, of course, there are other gaps that I'm unaware of.
Thanks for any advice!
-Dave
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