There is no such thing as having too much car insurance. Even though it is illegal to drive without insurance in Illinois, people still do it. It’s important to have at least the legal minimum auto insurance, but more is usually better. Purchasing additional insurance will protect you against drivers who did not buy enough insurance, if they hurt you. It can also protect your personal assets if you are sued after a car accident.
Illinois Insurance Minimums
Illinois is an at-fault state. If you get into an accident without insurance, what happens next depends on who was at fault. The minimum amount of insurance required is liability coverage. It must include: $25,000 for bodily injury per person; $50,000 bodily injury per accident; and $20,000 property damage per accident.
Those are the minimum requirements. I believe they are too low, especially with the astronomical cost of health care. It is beneficial to have more insurance, rather than not enough. I battle with insurance companies all the time when I help accident victims. More coverage seems better for everyone. It is better for injury victims and for those who caused an accident. Those who caused an accident often want to do the right thing while protecting what they have.
Liability Coverage
Liability coverage protects you if someone files a claim or sues you because of a covered accident. Here is a breakdown of the two types of coverage your policy must include:
- Property damage: protects your assets if you are found responsible for a covered accident. It covers certain damage you might have caused to another person’s property or vehicle, up to the amount of insurance you purchased.
- Bodily injury: protects your assets if you are found responsible for a covered accident, including certain costs related to bodily harm of someone else, up to the amount of insurance you purchased.
Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage
You should also have uninsured/underinsured motorist – bodily injury coverage, which helps pay for injuries to you or your passengers. This UIM/UM coverage kicks in after the responsible party’s coverage was used, if it was not enough.
If an uninsured driver causes an accident, good luck collecting from them. Without an insurance company to write a check, it is extremely difficult to be paid compensation, even if a court finds the other driver responsible for having caused the accident. You may have health or other insurance to cover part of your medical bills, but who will pay for lost time from work or future medical needs?
Underinsured coverage is similar, in that your own insurance company steps in, after you have gone through the insurance policy of the driver responsible for causing the accident. The rules are controlled by your insurance contract. The rules define what you need to do and when.
An example of when to use underinsured coverage may look like this: Person A causes an accident and injures Person B. Person A has $25,000 available under their policy to compensate Person A for his injuries. Person A is hospitalized for his injuries and the hospital bill is $40,000. He has physical therapy and a few more doctor visits. Total medical bills end up at $60,000.00 He also lost $5,000 worth of wages at work because of the accident. He had pain and he had suffering. The $25,000 policy of Person A does not even begin to cover it. Person B bought Underinsured coverage of $100,000.00. After settling with Person A for $25,000 and taking the steps required by his own insurance company, Person B has $75,000.00 left of potential coverage to compensate his injuries (Person B’s policy may require a reduction for the amount already recovered from Person A).
Many people to do not know where to begin if they were hurt by an uninsured driver. Uninsured motorist coverage is where your car insurance steps in to replace the insurance that the responsible driver should have had. If a driver does not have car insurance, they are called uninsured motorists. While this is against the law in the State of Illinois, it is common for drivers to drive without car insurance. Uninsured motorist coverage insurance can also protect you in hit and run accidents.
When using uninsured and underinsured coverage, you are using your own policy. That does not mean that the process will not be adversarial. Most people still benefit from having a lawyer because it is a battle with the insurance company. In theory, they are on your side but the reality is that they are often not. This makes dealing with them on your own especially dangerous.
Other Insurance Coverage in Illinois
Along with the required insurance, here is other coverage that people often opt for:
- Comprehensive: this is great coverage for other incidents, like theft, fire, vandalism, glass damage, or hitting an animal. It covers the repairs needed, subject to your deductible.
- Collision: used to pay for repairs of physical damage to your vehicle that occurs in an accident with another vehicle or object. Again, this is subject to your deductible.
- Uninsured/underinsured motorist – property damage: pays for damage to your vehicle caused by another driver if that person is uninsured/underinsured.
Med Pay or Medical benefits: covers reasonable and necessary medical costs or funerals for you or others covered under your policy, up to the amount you choose. It covers these costs no matter who is at fault for the accident. Note that you still have to deal with subrogation in many instances. In Illinois, I most often see Med Pay plans for either $5,000.00 in coverage or $10,000.00 in coverage. Often, this is not enough and covers only the emergency room bill. Sometimes, Med Pay does not even cover the emergency room bill, or it will cover the entire E.R. bill along with one or two doctor visits.
What about “Full Coverage”?
“Full coverage” is the biggest misnomer out there. People hear “full coverage” and think it means that they have every coverage imaginable, and they are protected under any and all circumstances. The insurance industry should not be allowed to call it “full coverage”. There is no real meaning to it. It usually only means that you have liability, collision and comprehensive. It does not mean uninsured. It does not mean underinsured. It does not mean MedPay. It does not mean gap insurance. It does not offer roadside assistance or car rental coverage. And it does not define dollar limits. Most people are shocked to find inadequate protection after a car accident, because they were told that they were buying “full coverage”. I have had many conversations with new clients who are shocked when I tell them how their insurance actually works, after they say “but I bought full coverage”.
Will my injury lawyer investigate insurance?
If you were hurt in a car accident, which was someone else’s fault, one of the first things that we do is look into all available insurance. What you can recover from an at-fault driver after an accident will be largely determined by how much insurance they have. When there isn’t enough, your underinsured motorist coverage can help but under most policies, this is only true if you have more coverage than what the other driver has. All too often, I come across people who were badly hurt by another driver’s negligence, only to find out that there was only $25,000.00 worth of insurance. In a serious accident, the medical bills alone will exceed that. While you cannot control how much insurance another driver has, you can control what you have. Think of underinsured insurance as a way to pick up what the other driver’s insurance doesn’t cover.
Using your uninsured or underinsured auto policy is tricky. There are often conditions associated with it and steps that must be taken to protect your right to use it. These requirements are buried in your insurance policy. They must be followed precisely, or you could find yourself unable to use the coverage that you paid for. We look at all of this for our clients.
The last thing you want to worry about after an accident is whether you have enough insurance. Many insurance agents mean well but were not properly trained on their products, and might not be offering you what they should.
Take the extra steps now to make sure you and your loved ones are protected. I am an attorney and am not trying to sell you anything, I just want to get the word out there to everyone before it’s too late. If you were hurt in an accident that was not your fault, give me a call at 630 250-8813 (Elgin) or 847 631-6125 (Schaumburg). I can help you to better understand your options, especially if you were seriously hurt in an Illinois car accident.