Florida car accident lawyer explains the myth of full insurance coverage!
The other day I was speaking to a guy injured in an accident and I asked him about this insurance coverage. He said…. “I got the platinum policy. I got full coverage!”
I said – you do.. great! I’ll call your insurance company and check. He didn’thave full coverage. Do you have full insurance coverage on your car? Hang on a minute and I’ll explain the common misunderstanding about “full coverage”.
If I had a buck for every client over the years that has come into my office and said they had “full coverage” on their car – I would be able to go on a nice vacation. Many folks mix up the state mandatory minimum of insurance with “full coverage”
First, let’s talk about Florida state minimums. You need two types of insurance:
- 10,000 in PIP – which is also called no fault insurance. It pays medical expenses whether or not you caused the crash; and
- 10,000 in property damage coverage
I hate to tell you, this is not full coverage. I had to tell the guy that I couldn’t help him because he only had the state minimum and the other guy had nothing. The guy couldn’t even get somebody to pay for his car because he didn’t have collision coverage.
Remember the sole purpose of insurance is to protect you – so in order to protect yourself, you need coverage to fix your car, pay for medical expenses, and provide a means to pay compensate you if the other person is uninsured or underinsured.
What does full coverage look like?
An insurance policy that has in additional to the state minimum: collision coverage if you have a late model vehicle, medical payments coverage, and more importantly uninsured and – in case you are injured by somebody else.
Chapter 13 of my book – a Guide to Florida car accident claims – discusses insurance coverage in much more detail. If you would like a free copy – just click the link and ask for it. You can get it here for free or buy it on Amazon.