Let me share some of what I know about car insurance. You learn a lot when dealing with car wrecks in and around Mobile on a daily basis.

Here we go, 5 things that might surprise you.

If you loan your car to a co-worker and there is an accident, your insurance will pay. BUT if you lend that same car to someone who lives in your house, it will not. Every adult under your roof must be listed as a driver on your car’s policy. I strongly recommend that if your relatives/housemates have their own auto insurance policy and car that they list you, for that one time, you have to take their car to the store.

This is so shocking to me. You get insurance to protect yourself in an emergency, but then you go out and get the absolute minimum coverage so that you will pay the least. In reality, you have almost no protection at all. I see car and truck accidents where the medical expenses alone are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Alabama bodily injury minimum is only $25,000. I know of a car wreck victim who had to be med-flighted to a hospital. The cost of the flight alone was $25,000.

There are people in Baldwin and Mobile Counties driving around without insurance. It is just a fact. One study said that at a red light, if you look to the left and the right, one of you does not have enough insurance to cover a major accident. The solution is to have insurance that protects you from those people. Here is the surprising news: it is some of the least expensive insurance you can get.

Alabama does not require you to have insurance to fix your car. This is collision coverage. The legislature must feel you are on the hook for repairs, and it doesn’t care how you pay for it. However, they require you to have $25,000 to fix the other driver’s car and for all the damage you might have caused (taking down a billboard, destroying a fence, hitting a cow). Do you know what vehicles cost today? That $25,000 will not cover major damage to a car, costing roughly $50,000.

This is one of the magic benefits of uninsured/underinsured insurance. Then, you let the two insurance companies fight it out. I know of some insurance companies, mainly the out-of-state ones, that have taken two years to pay.

If you are injured in a personal injury accident, you can talk to us at the law firm of Steele Ritchie for free. We genuinely want to help. We are local attorneys with decades of experience helping people, especially in the southwest Mobile area. Give us a call at (251) 666-1212. We are proud to be called the “personal injury lawyers near me” by many people here in Mobile and Baldwin Counties.

Allen Ritchie

Alabama Personal Injury Lawyer

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