How to Adult: Auto Insurance

Hey friends! I hope you are all doing well! Last year, I learned a lot of things about life that were just never taught to me until I was forced to learn them. These are grown up situations and topics that should be known by grown ass men and women but are just never really explained.

Today’s topic is auto insurance!

Auto insurance is in no way, shape, or form fun despite the silly ads we see from companies like Progressive or Geico. However, it is a very important topic that everyone legitimately should be aware of. Although each company is unique in their own way and even may use different terms for their coverage, overall their process is mostly the same. Just an FYI, the best advice you can get about your insurance is from your own insurance company!

Comprehensive vs Collision

When an accident occurs, there are two main categories they get classified in: Comprehensive or collision. A comprehensive claim is an incident where something happened to you. An animal jumping in front of your vehicle, a tree falling on your vehicle, hail damage, vandalism etc. Essentially, these are situations that you had no control over, did not contribute to, and does not involve another vehicle.

A collision incident is something that you contributed to. Mostly commonly are impacting/being impacted by another car, an object, driving over something in the road etc. Anything that collides with your vehicle.

Deductible

The reason it is important to know the difference between comp and collision is so that you can check out your policy for your vehicle to know what your deductible is. A deductible is the price you agree to pay when an accident occurs and you want assistance from your insurance company.

Even if you are not at fault for the incident, if you want to go through your own insurance company you will be required to pay your deductible. A lot of people believe that just because they pay their monthly premium, it’ll automatically pay for everything without their involvement but they are sorely mistaken.

If you can not afford your deductible at the time of the incident, you absolutely have time to save up since most states have a series of years from when the accident occurred to repair through your policy.

Liability

Liability is essentially the determination of who was at fault an incident: Who acted the most unreasonable in the situation leading up to the accident, who failed to yield the right of way, followed too closely, ran a red light, etc.

Often times people get into accidents by the car in front of them coming to a sudden stop for whatever reason. They express that it was not their fault since the action was so sudden, but in reality drivers should always give themselves enough room to be prepared for any sort of evasive maneuvers.

 Policy

Each insurance company has their own policy and it is the layout of what the company is willing to pay for and what is excluded. Although most policies are not fun or easy to read, it has a wealth of information to what you are owed when involved in an accident.

Coverages

When you sign up for ontario cheapest car insurance you need to choose what you would like to be covered in case the worst happens. Many people are under the impression that when they buy insurance, everything is covered, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

There is rental coverage, medical coverage, hazard coverage, etc., and with each coverage there is potentially a whole range of coverage you can get depending on how much you want to pay.

Total Loss

When the damages to a vehicle meets or exceed 75% of the actual cash value, it’ll more than likely be considered a total loss. From there, depending on your insurance company, there will be various options from auctioning off the vehicle for a settlement, or keeping the vehicle.

Often times you’ll see older cars with only liability coverage since the price of their deductible would probably be around the total loss threshold.

All and all, insurance sucks to learn about, but is crucial to understand when the worst happens. Hopefully this article helps provide a bit of insight on the process! Here’s hoping you’ll never ever have to deal with any of this!

For any questions regarding your own policy, check out your own insurance and call their customer service center!