Texas Comprehensive Insurance – Understanding Requirements and Protection
There is a difference between meeting insurance requirements and actually getting good protection for your vehicle.
In the state of Texas, there is a requirement for insurance coverage. That legal minimal insurance is meant to protect all drivers, but the problems you are left facing can include these:
- Not enough coverage to fully pay for another person’s vehicle
- Not enough coverage to pay for all medical expenses
- No coverage for your own vehicle at all
That last one is the killer, right? No coverage at all for your own vehicle if you only have the minimum, required liability insurance. If you have financing on your vehicle, the finance company will require more insurance because they want to protect their investment and property. It is your car, you drive it, but if something happens to that car, it is the financing company that will lose out and they may pursue legal actions to get back some of the money they have lost.
What is the Minimum Insurance Coverage Amount?
In Texas, you are legally required to provide insurance, which is called 30/60/25. That means that you are providing $30,000 in medical payment coverage for each person injured in an accident, for a total of $60,000 per incident. In addition, you must also provide $25,000 for property damage per accident. Simply put, if you hit a $75,000 vehicle in your own $50,000 car and injure four people, you will be left with a huge amount of money that you are personally responsible for beyond what the insurance will cover.
How Comprehensive Insurance Coverage Makes Sense for You
In addition to the minimum insurance coverage that you are required to have when you drive or register a car in the state of Texas, most people will buy other coverage types, including the comprehensive insurance option. With this option, you are buying insurance coverage that will keep you from being hit with major expenses from non-collision accidents or damages from other types of problems such as theft or vandalism.
Comprehensive insurance also will pay for a rental car or other type of temporary transportation when you are without a vehicle because of any covered event including theft or repairs that occur after accidents.
Consider the Conditions on the Roads in Texas
Why do you need comprehensive auto insurance coverage if you are not required to have it by law? Think about the roads in Texas and the conditions you might be faced with while driving there. These conditions can include:
- Busy roadways with thousands of other drivers in the major cities
- Remote roads that may be in various states of disrepair
- Rural roads where you might encounter random animals, including misplaced livestock
- Roads prone to flash flooding. These roads may be covered in water or covered in mud where the water has already receded
In addition to the conditions on the roads, you also need to consider some of the weather and other conditions in Texas, which can include hail, driving rain and flooding in some years or droughts and wild fires in other years.
Comprehensive Insurance and Auto Thefts
In 2007, Texas ranked number two on the list of the top ten states for car theft in the United States. Neither collision insurance nor liability insurance will pay you a single cent if your car is stolen. That means that if your car is financed and is stolen, you will still have to pay the cost of the car, without being able to drive it at all because it is gone. If that car is recovered but damaged, you are still out a vehicle and still paying for it.
Comprehensive insurance will cover the cost of your vehicle’s market value minus your required deductible if it is stolen, whether it is recovered or not but only if you report it to the police. There are instances where people will not report their car stolen because they may think it was taken by a family member or others or may even know that it was taken without permission.
In addition to theft, comprehensive insurance will also cover the cost of repairs if the car is vandalized. Vandals often do things such as slash tires, damage the gas tank or may break windows in the vehicle for many reasons.
Comprehensive Insurance, in Addition to, Not Instead of
In most cases, your agent will discuss the need to include comprehensive insurance in addition to other types of insurance instead of relying on it solely for your car and family’s protection. It is important to make sure that you have the right kind of coverage for your personal needs.
Comprehensive vs. Collision – Do You Understand Your Coverage?
If you were asked about whether your auto insurance policy includes comprehensive insurance coverage, would you even know the answer?
In fact, it is quite important that you make sure you understand what exactly comprehensive car insurance is. It may come as a bit of a shock, but many drivers are under the false assumption that their policy already includes coverage for any and all of the issues comprehensive auto insurance takes care of.
To find out, all you have to do is contact your current insurance provider and ask these types of questions about your policy as it stands at present: 
- “If my car is stolen will it be replaced?”
- “Is damage to my car that results from flooding or other storm related incidents covered?”
- “Who pays for repairs to my car if the damage is caused by an animal?”
- “If my car is damaged as the result of vandalism, will the repairs be taken care of by my insurance policy?
- “I’ve heard that many types of insurance policies do not cover ‘acts of God.’ Does my car insurance policy currently cover damage from something considered an ‘act of God’?”
All of these are factors that are covered by comprehensive car insurance. If it isn’t already part of the policy you currently have, you could be taking a huge gamble with your coverage. Having gaps in your policy or lacking the coverage you need could result in paying expensive repair costs from your own pocket. Still you may not truly grasp the severity of what this entails.
“Paying Out of Pocket Can’t Be That Bad”
Unfortunately, many drivers are under the false impression that if they were forced to pay some of their car repair expenses out of their own pocket it would be manageable. Unless you have a considerable amount of savings put aside for expenses like this you are most likely fooling yourself into believing something that is not true. Consider some of these scenarios:
- If you do not have comprehensive insurance coverage and your brand new car suffers vandalism you may be paying for all of the repair from your own pocket. If you have priced just the cost of an entire body repaint recently you should already be aware that this is probably not an expense that would be easy to manage unexpectedly.
- You could be leasing a car because you like to be able to change vehicles every few years without the commitment of being tied down to one vehicle. However if you do not have comprehensive car insurance and the car you are leasing gets totaled in a natural disaster, you will probably be stuck buying that car. Not only will you be forced to buy a car when you only wanted to lease it, but that totaled car won’t even be drivable so you will be left paying for a car you can’t do anything with.
- You get a brand new car of your dreams and drive it off the lot feeling certain you have all the insurance required in place for it. The very first night you drive it home your car becomes the innocent victim that gets burned as the result of a nearby house fire. The next day you contact your insurance company to find out about a replacement vehicle only to find out there won’t be one. Without comprehensive insurance coverage you could be left with no new car at all before even having made the very first loan payment on it.
Hopefully, this puts things in a better perspective for you. This should give you a more realistic look at the importance of having comprehensive insurance coverage for your automobile, especially if you are still making payments on it. It is extremely important that you do not assume that you have any coverage for your car other than collision. If you have any doubt in your mind, it is time to work with your insurance provider to review and understand what your policy covers.
“But I Opted Out of Comprehensive to Save on My Premiums”
If you thought you would be a thrifty driver and save money by leaving out the comprehensive car insurance so you would have lower premiums, keep in mind you are getting what you pay for. Cutting coverage means cutting corners on your policy not just your finances. In other words, it is more like taking a gamble with your money and your insurance.
Unless you have a good deal of money set aside in savings for the possibility of needing major car repairs, then saving money on your monthly premiums is not worth the risk. The thing to understand about collision insurance is that it usually covers just what the name implies, collision only. The problem is there are plenty of factors that can cause damage other that a collision that you may not even be considering.
Aside from collision, what happens if:
- The body and/or windshield of your car are damaged or destroyed by hail.
- While you are camping, a bear tears into your soft-top convertible for that bag of chips you forgot about in the back seat.
- A potted plant falls from the balcony of an apartment terrace and destroys your windshield.
- Lightning takes down a tree while you are parked at the local park causing severe damage and possibly even complete destruction.
The bottom line is that life can throw expected obstacles in your path literally, and accidents are not the only expensive car related issue you may have to contend with. If you have been assuming your collision insurance is enough to make the needed repairs or replace your car, you may be completely misinformed.
The good news is you do not have to take the risk another day longer. By offering up just your zip code you could be getting the comprehensive car insurance quotes you need right away.
Put an end to the gamble today and get your comprehensive auto insurance quotes.
Getting the Most Coverage with Comprehensive Car Insurance
So you got that new car or finally signed up to lease the car of your dreams, which also meant getting comprehensive car insurance, or did it? While you may think your “full coverage” policy has you fully covered, you may be surprised to learn this is not necessarily true. Most drivers, in fact, have little coverage above and beyond what the basic collision and liability policy includes.
If you are not sure about the insurance policy you have in place, be sure to take the time to find out if you actually have comprehensive insurance coverage for your vehicle. The worst part is if you do not have coverage for the types of incidents that comprehensive auto insurance covers, you will be held responsible for paying for these repairs on your own. It also means if the car is totaled out you will have to pay for the entire vehicle.
What It All Means
If the new car you are making payments on or leasing suffers damage, your insurance is intended to step in to cover the repair costs. In some cases a car may even be totaled out, which means the damage is so severe that it would be less expensive to replace the car than to repair it. If your insurance has gaps in it or does not include things that are generally covered by comprehensive car insurance, then your insurance company will not be paying.
The bottom line is that the insurance policy you have been paying for won’t help. The new car you financed will still have to be paid on even if the car is totaled out and you may not even have a car to drive. For these reasons, you should make sure you actually have the comprehensive auto insurance you truly need. If not, you may find yourself with more expenses than you can actually manage.
What Exactly Is Covered
You need more than collision when it comes to your automobile insurance policy. There are so many more things that can happen to a car other than a simple collision when it comes to owning and operating a vehicle. The problem is most drivers assume their insurance will handle things aside from accidents.
Here is a list of the top five things that can happen to cause damage to a car that doesn’t even involve a standard collision:
- Fire
- Theft
- Storm or other natural disaster
- Vandalism
- “Act of God”
Don’t take chances when it comes to your coverage unless you are prepared to pay for the full price of that new car out of your own pocket, even once the car is totaled out and you are left with nothing to drive. To get the ultimate protection you need, get your free quotes today. By providing us with your zip code you can be on your way to the most affordable rates in comprehensive car insurance on the market today.
