CAR INSURANCE BOWLING GREEN, KY

Your auto policy may include six coverages. Each coverage is priced separately.

1. Bodily Injury Liability
This coverage applies to injuries you, the designated driver, or policyholder cause to someone else. You and family members listed on the policy are also covered when driving someone else’s car with their permission. It’s very important to have enough liability insurance, because if you are involved in a serious accident, you may be sued for a large sum of money. Definitely consider buying more than the state-required minimum to protect assets such as your home and savings.

2. Medical Payments or Personal Injury Protection (PIP)
This coverage pays for the treatment of injuries to the driver and passengers of the policyholder’s car. At its broadest, PIP can cover medical payments, lost wages, and the cost of replacing services normally performed by someone injured in an auto accident. It may also cover funeral costs.

3. Property Damage Liability
This coverage pays for damage you (or someone driving the car with your permission) may cause to someone else’s property. Usually, this means damage to someone else’s car, but it also includes damage to lamp posts, telephone poles, fences, buildings, or other structures hit by your car.

4. Collision
This coverage pays for damage to your car resulting from a collision with another car or object, or as a result of flipping over. It also covers damage caused by potholes. Collision coverage is generally sold with a deductible of $250 to $1,000—the higher your deductible, the lower your premium. Even if you are at fault for the accident, your collision coverage will reimburse you for the costs of repairing your car, minus the deductible. If you’re not at fault, your insurance company may try to recover the amount they paid you from the other driver’s insurance company. If they are successful, you’ll also be reimbursed for the deductible.

5. Comprehensive
This coverage reimburses you for loss due to theft or damage caused by something other than a collision with another car or object, such as fire, falling objects, missiles, explosion, earthquake, windstorm, hail, flood, vandalism, riot, or contact with animals such as birds or deer. Comprehensive insurance is usually sold with a $100 to $300 deductible, although you may want to opt for a higher deductible as a way of lowering your premium.
Comprehensive insurance will also reimburse you if your windshield is cracked or shattered. Some companies offer glass coverage with or without a deductible. States do not require that you purchase collision or comprehensive coverage, but if you have a car loan, your lender may insist you carry it until your loan is paid off.

6. Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage
This coverage will reimburse you, a member of your family, or a designated driver if one of you is hit by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver. Underinsured motorist coverage comes into play when an at-fault driver has insufficient insurance to pay for your total loss. This coverage will also protect you if you are hit as a pedestrian.

Almost every state requires you to buy a minimum amount of liability coverage. Chances are that you will need more liability insurance than the state requires because accidents cost more than the minimum limits. If you’re found legally responsible for bills that are more than your insurance covers, you will have to pay the difference out of your own pocket. These costs could wipe you out!

The Insurance Information Institute recommends that you have $100,000 of bodily injury protection per person and $300,000 per accident. If your net worth is more than $300,000, consider buying additional liability insurance. You may also consider purchasing an umbrella or excess liability policy. These policies pay when your underlying coverages are exhausted. Typically, these policies cost between $200 and $300 per year for $1,000,000 in coverage. If you have your homeowners and auto insurance with the same company, check out the cost of coverage with this company first. If you have coverage with different companies, it may be easier to buy it from your auto insurance company.

In addition to liability coverage, consider buying collision and comprehensive coverage. You don’t decide how much to buy. Your coverage reflects the market value of your car and the cost of repairing it. Decide on a deductible—the amount of money you pay on a claim before the insurance company reimburses you. Typical deductibles are $500 or $1,000, and the higher your deductible, the lower your premium.

There are many factors that influence the price you pay for auto insurance. The average American driver spends about $700 a year. Your premium may be higher or lower, depending on the following:

1) Your driving record

The better your record, the lower your premium. If you’ve had accidents or serious traffic violations, you will pay more than if you’ve had a clean driving record. You may also pay more if you haven’t been insured for a number of years.

2) The number of miles you drive each year

The more miles you drive, the more chance for accidents. If you drive a lower than average number of miles per year—less than 10,000—you will pay less. For instance, some companies will give discounts to policyholders who carpool.

3) Where you live

Insurance companies look at local trends, such as the number of accidents, car thefts, and lawsuits, as well as the cost of medical care and car repair.

4) Your age

In general, mature drivers have fewer accidents than less experienced drivers, particularly teenagers. So insurers generally charge more if teenagers or young people below age 25 drive your car.

5) The car you drive

Some cars cost more to insure than others. Variables include the likelihood of theft, the cost of the car, the cost of repairs, and the overall safety record of the car.

6) The amount of coverage

Of course, like anything else, the more coverage you have, the more you pay. However, you may qualify for discounts.

If you’re like most people shopping for a new car, safety ranks high among things you’re looking for. Every new car must meet certain federal safety standards, but that doesn’t mean that all cars are equally safe. There are still important safety differences, and some vehicles are safer than others. Many automakers offer safety features beyond the required federal minimums. The following safety features should be considered when purchasing a car:

1) Crashworthiness
These features reduce the risk of death or serious injury when a crash occurs. You can get a rating of crashworthiness from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s website at http://www.highwaysafety.org.

2) Vehicle structural design
A good structural design has a strong occupant compartment, known as the safety cage, as well as front and rear ends designed to buckle and bend in a crash to absorb the force of the crash. These crush zones should keep damage away from the safety cage because once the cage starts to collapse, the likelihood of injury increases rapidly.

3) Vehicle size and weight
The laws of physics dictate that larger and heavier cars are safer than lighter and smaller ones. Small cars have twice as many occupant deaths each year as large cars. In crashes involving smaller and larger vehicles, heavier vehicles drive lighter ones backwards, decreasing the forces inside the heavier car and increasing them in the lighter car.

4) Restraint systems
Belts, airbags, and head restraints all work together with a vehicle’s structure to protect people in serious crashes. Lap/shoulder belts hold you in place, reducing the chance you’ll slam into something hard or get ejected from the crashing vehicle. If you aren’t belted, you’ll continue moving forward until something suddenly stops you—often a hard interior surface that will injure you.

– Shoulder belts are on inertia reels that allow upper body movement during normal driving but lock during hard braking or in a crash. Belt webbing is stored on the reel, and during a frontal crash any slack in the webbing can allow some forward movement of your upper body. Then you could strike the steering wheel, dashboard, or windshield. This problem is addressed in some cars with belt crash tensioners that activate early in a collision to reel in belt slack and prevent some of the forward movement.

– Airbags and lap/shoulder belts together are very effective. However in some circumstances, inflating airbags cause serious injuries and even death. The greatest risk of injury from an inflating airbag is if you’re on top of, or very close to an airbag when it starts to inflate. Choose a car that allows you to reach the gas and brake pedals comfortably without sitting too close to the steering wheel. Some cars offer telescoping steering columns, which can help you find a safe driving position.

– Side airbags are designed principally to protect your chest. They may also keep your head from hitting interior or intruding structures.

– Head restraints are required in the front seats of all new passenger cars to keep your head from being snapped back, injuring your neck in a rear-end crash. But there are big differences among head restraints. Some are adjustable and others are fixed. They also vary in height and how far they’re set back from the head. To prevent neck injury, a head restraint has to be directly behind and close to the back of your head. Look for cars that have this type of restraint. If the restraints are adjustable, makersure they can be locked into place. Some don’t lock, which means they can be pushed down in a crash.

– Anti-lock brakes. When you brake hard with conventional brakes, the wheels may lock and cause skidding and a lack of control. Anti-lock brakes pump the brakes automatically many times per second to prevent lockup and allow you to keep control of the car. If you were trained to brake gently on slippery roads or pump your brakes to avoid a skid, you will have to unlearn these habits and use hard, continuous pressure to activate your antilock brakes. Anti-lock brakes may help you keep steering control, but they won’t necessarily help you stop more quickly.

– Daytime running lights. The ignition switch activates these lights. They are typically high-beam headlights at reduced intensity or low-beam lights at full or reduced power. By increasing the contrast between vehicles and their backgrounds and making the vehicles more visible to oncoming drivers, these lights can help prevent daytime accidents.

– On-the-road experience. Other design characteristics can influence injury risk on the road. Some small utility vehicles and pickups are prone to rolling over. “High-performance” cars typically have higher-than-average death rates because the drivers are tempted to use excessive speed. Combining a young driver and a high-performance car can be particularly dangerous.