What If Insurance Can't Cover Enough After a Car Accident?

Make sure you have enough car insurance to protect you and your family

In many states, including Pennsylvania, drivers are not required to have a lot of insurance. In Pennsylvania, the required bodily injury insurance is only $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident. This means, if someone else injures you, all you can get from his insurance is $15,000. $15,000 doesn't go very far. Especially if you suffered a brain injury and won't ever be able to work again. This is why you don't want to trust that other people have enough insurance. Make sure that you have enough to protect yourself and your loved ones.

Get Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist

If someone else causes an accident and hurts you, if he doesn't have enough insurance to cover your lost wages or physical and emotional injuries, you will be out of luck if you don't get UIM/UM. UIM and UM kick in if the other person didn't have insurance at all or if he didn't have enough insurance. These forms of insurance are not expensive at all and they can make all the difference in your life. In addition, if you have more than one policy, you should "stack" it. Stacking increases the amount of insurance available.

Don't get limited tort

We cannot stress enough the harm that limited tort does to people who suffer what is considered to be not serious enough. If you have limited tort insurance and do not suffer a serious injury, you won't be able to get any money for pain and suffering. Only your medical bills and the damage to your car will be covered. Unfortunately, when you are laid up for a week or two and suffer a back injury that lasts for months, the insurance company won't consider that injury serious enough for limited tort to be defeated. As a result, you won't be able to obtain any compensation at all, despite your pain and suffering. If you do have an injury that is serious, your lawyer will have to fight to prove that it is serious enough to defeat the limited tort threshold so you can receive a fair settlement against the person who hurt you. The cost savings for limited tort versus full tort are simply not worth it.

What happens if you don't have enough insurance?

It is entirely too common for people who don't have enough insurance to find themselves in a very bad position. If you don't have health insurance on top of not having enough car insurance, you could find yourself going bankrupt due to someone else's negligence. Please, protect yourself. Get full tort, UIM/UM insurance (stacked.) And, please make sure you don't limit yourself to the minimum required in Pennsylvania. It simply isn't enough for the average car accident.