Georgia Underinsured Uninsured Auto Insurance Tips
When you get into an accident with an uninsured driver, then your minimum liability automobile insurance policy will not help you in the least towards your damages. In order to be covered in such an incident, you need to have uninsured motorist coverage.
As I’ve mentioned, the requirements for bodily injury liability under Georgia auto insurance law are pretty low, so in a bad accident it wouldn’t be too hard for the actual medical costs to go way over the amount of insurance that this person has. This is why under insured motorist coverage is also very necessary.
If a person only has twenty five thousand in bodily injury liability, and the damages are thirty thousand, then their car insurance company will pay for the first amount, and your own will pay for the remaining five thousand dollars. Depending on where you are at, the way this is handled could be different. For example, if insurance law requires that under insured motorist coverage be added on, then it will happen much like this:
If your under insured motorist coverage is for, say sixty thousand dollars, and their bodily injury liability is twenty five thousand dollars, then the two amounts will be put together to make eighty five thousand dollars, and that will be your coverage.
However, in other areas they deduct. If this is the case with you, the with the above coverages, you would only have the sixty thousand dollars of coverage.
As for uninsured motorist coverage, it covers bodily injury as well, although there is no additional coverage to be added to it. If you want your damages to be fixed, then you should have collision coverage.
If there is more than one car on your insurance policy, then you can add more to your coverage by stacking your policies. So, instead of having sixty thousand dollars of coverage, you would have a hundred and twenty thousand.
What Is The Minimum Required Auto Insurance in Georgia?
If you want to get auto insurance in Georgia, then you are required to follow the law and get the proper amount of coverage. If you don’t want to get auto insurance, then you’re out of luck, because you have to. End of story. Most car insurance companies will sale you the simple minimum liability of auto insurance if you go in and request nothing more than to be insured, but you still ought to understand what is required and why, and why you should take a step beyond that.
To meet the minimum requirements for auto insurance in Georgia, you are required to have liability coverage. This type of coverage will take care of medical costs and property damage for the person to whom you cause damage in an accident which is your fault. You have to have:
- $25,000 of bodily injury coverage for each individual
- $50,000 cap for each accident if there is more than one person
- $25,000 for damage to property, such as a vehicle or a fence
These are the required amounts, but most companies that sell auto insurance in Georgia suggest that you stack on a little more than this amount of insurance, and the most commonly suggested amount is 100/300/100. You should remember when buying liability coverage for bodily injury that the two amounts do not combine. If you have fifty thousand of coverage for more than one person, then that is all that you get for a single accident, even if four people are injured. If only one person is injure, all they get is twenty five thousand. Considering the cost of medical bills in bad accidents, it makes sense to get more than that amount.
You need to have auto insurance, because the Georgia department of insurance can tell when you don’t. As a matter of fact, they have an online insurance verification system that keeps track of the insured and uninsured in the state. You can check your own status online to make sure that there aren’t any mistakes, although if you have only recently gotten a policy you should let a month pass before checking because it takes time.
If you go without auto insurance for 10 days or more, then your registration could be suspended. You would then have to pay $85 to restore. And although your auto insurance can be verified online, you should still carry an insurance card in your vehicle for when you get pulled over.
If you want to lower your annual premiums, try raising your deductible amount to something like $1,000 or more. You only pay when you file a claim with your insurance carrier and the savings over the long term could be substantial.
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