How’s it feel to check your account and see that your car insurance payment hit your checking account? Probably not great, huh? In fact, you may be wondering what you’re even paying this insurance company for. You may feel like you’re paying them just so you can have proof of insurance when a police officer pulls you over. In extreme cases, you may even be wondering if the premiums cost more than a ticket for driving without insurance. Do you really need car insurance? Of course, you’re legally obligated to have car insurance. But you’re also legally obligated to drive the speed limit and people go over that all the time. So is it really necessary to have car insurance? Or can you save a few hundred per month and risk the traffic citation?
THE SHORT ANSWER
Do you need car insurance in Utah?
Yeah, you need car insurance. For starters, driving a car without insurance is illegal. However, having car insurance isn’t just necessary for you to avoid a traffic citation for driving without insurance. Remember, you can’t control everything. You may be one of the most safe drivers on this planet. But no matter what you do, you can’t control the way other people drive their cars. People drink and drive. People text and drive. Some people aren’t able to drive their cars in a safe way during weather conditions such as sleet, hail, or heavy rain. Even if you’re a safe driver, other drivers aren’t always safe. You can protect yourself by having the appropriate amount of coverage.
HOW INSURANCE PROTECTS YOU
As previously mentioned, insurance protects you from crazy drivers. But it also protects other drivers from you when you’re the one who’s driving like a maniac, or if you just make a mistake. It can happen to all of us. If you don’t have insurance, you could be personally liable for the damages you cause. Damage could be your medical bills, the other party’s medical bills, your property damage, or another party’s property damage. Though it’s not extremely likely that you’ll be civilly sued if you don’t have enough assets to pay for the potential judgment against you, it could still happen. Your wages can still be garnished and certain assets may still be liquidated. Having insurance can help protect you from these unfortunate circumstances.
HOW IT ALL WORKS
Do you need car insurance in Utah?
Your insurance policy has a coverage contains a policy limit. The policy limit refers to the maximum amount of money your insurance will pay in the event of an accident. So, if you have a $50,000 policy limit, your insurance will pay for up to $50,000 worth of damages. Here’s how it all works: you pay your insurance company a predetermined sum of money on a regular basis. This is called your premium, and it’s based upon how likely the insurance company thinks you are to wind up in a car accident. The more likely it is that you’ll end up in an accident, the higher your premiums will be. When you’re paying those premiums, you’re paying for the insurance company to cover you up to those policy limits in the event of a crash.
UNINSURED AND UNDERINSURED MOTORIST POLICIES
If you have insurance, you don’t need to get the biggest, baddest policy on the market. However, having underinsured and uninsured motorist policies can save you from paying for the cost of an accident out of pocket. If another party causes an accident, and you don’t have an uninsured motorist policy, you could be stuck with the medical bills. Many people have insurance policies with limits as low as they can legally be. It’s not hard to incur medical bills in excess of those limits in a moderate accident. If you are injured in an accident by a driver who has insurance, but the insurance isn’t quite enough to cover all your accident-related expenses, your underinsured motorist policy may pick up the rest. Though these policies are not legally required, they are relatively inexpensive and can save you from paying additional expenses in the future.
GETTING LAWYERS INVOLVED
Do you need car insurance in Utah?
Sometimes, insurance isn’t enough to cover all of a person’s injury-related expenses. Usually, an insurance company will offer the injured party a settlement check to cover all of the accident-related expenses. When the settlement check isn’t enough, because the policy limit is too low, a personal injury lawyer may need to get involved. Personal injury lawyers know the laws and lingo necessary to negotiate a fair settlement with the insurance company. If a lawyer sounds like it’s out of your budget, don’t worry: it’s not. At Moxie Law Group, we offer everyone free consultations to help injured parties decide whether or not to file a claim. If the injured party files a claim, they don’t have to pay us anything until they get a settlement check. If they don’t get a settlement check, they don’t owe us anything. So, if your insurance isn’t cutting it, Moxie Law Group is here for you.
