Understanding Personal Auto Insurance (Personal Lines 101) _ School For Insurance (Education)

Personal auto insurance .

What is it and why do we have it ?

It will come as no surprise to you that car accidents happen all the time .

These result in both damage to the vehicles themselves as well as bodily injury to the people involved .

Personal auto insurance helps to cover these claims .

Let's take a look at a couple of examples one day as Mike was leaving his house for work , he looked at his watch and realized he was running late in an effort to get to work on time .

He ran a red light and crashed into a car in the intersection .

This caused significant damage to the car he hit as well as to his own vehicle .

Additionally , the driver in the other car , Michelle broke her arm and Mike got a concussion from hitting his head , sending both of them to the hospital .

Fortunately , Mike had both liability and physical damage coverage on his personal auto policy .

The liability portion paid the medical bills for Michelle as well as the cost to repair her vehicle .

The physical damage coverage of his policy paid for his own vehicle and the medical payments coverage paid for his medical bills .

It was an unfortunate accident but everything turned out .

All right , in the end , had Mike not purchased auto liability insurance , which is required by law in most states .

Michelle could have further protected herself by adding uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage to her own personal auto policy .

Now , let's look at Nicole one day when leaving her house , she noticed a very unfortunate event , her beautiful tree in the front yard had uprooted and came crashing down on her car parked in the driveway .

The car was simply undrivable .

She called her insurance agent asking what to do and she assured Nicole everything would be ok .

Nicole's policy had other than collision coverage for physical damage and the insurance company would pay for the repair .

Additionally , they would pay for the cost of a rental car until her car was repaired .

It's the job of the customer service representative to recommend adequate coverages and limits to protect their client from all potential auto claims that could arise .