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The State of Oregon requires four mandatory coverages:
- Bodily Injury Liability
- Property damage Liability
- Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury
- Personal Injury Protection.
Three of the four required benefits under your auto insurance deal with medical expenses. The first one pays the other party you injure if they go to the doctor or hospital. The third one covers you if you suffer injury in a hit-and-run accident or the other driver has no insurance. The last one pays for you and your passengers if you are hurt regardless of fault.
Many people think auto insurance only covers cars, and for good reason, it’s called car insurance, not auto injury insurance. Yes, the prices of automobiles are going up, but so are the costs of medical care. A vehicle has a limited value, but you may not know where your medical expenses and therapy will end after you are released from the doctor’s care.
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You have an expensive car. Someone rear-ends you and totals it. They have $20,000 in property damage liability, leaving you short, say, $30,000. Who is going to pay the difference?
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Property Damage is an optional coverage you can purchase to cover the difference. It is subject to a deductible of $200 or $300, but that’s better than trying to sue the other guy for what he probably doesn’t have, given you can find the driver if it’s a hit-and-run. Of course, if you have collision coverage, the company can pay out of that line, but the deductible might be higher, like $500 or $1,000, and future companies may see that in the reports as at fault. You would have to jump through hoops to prove it wasn’t your fault. Uninsured Motorist is the better way to go for as little as it costs.
The same thing applies to your injuries. Let’s take that same scenario and assume you were injured. Your medical bills exceed the $25,000 the other party has in limits. The Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury line on your policy will pay the difference up to your purchased amount. This coverage is not optional. Every Oregon auto insurance policy has it. The difference is the limit one may select over another.
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1. If your car has liability only or basic coverage, it would be covered for damage if hit by someone who has no insurance, or you are a victim of a hit-and-run accident.
2. If you have full coverage, including comprehensive and collision, the deductible is probably lower for Uninsured Motorist Property Damage (UMPD).
3. Paying out through UMPD if the other party has no insurance, the accident is automatically listed as not-at-fault. That may not mean much now, but when it comes time to shop around for better insurance, all the other companies will see it as non-fault and not hassle you for documents and proof the accident wasn’t your fault. If you let your company pay for the damage using collision coverage, the accident may require you to prove you were not at fault. That means asking for letters from your company and keeping documents for up to five years. It’s even more complicated when it’s a hit-and-run, as there is no one else to blame. Not all police departments will write up a report, giving you one less option for proof.
Bonus reason. UMPD is cheap. It’s about $10 - $20 for six months. Don’t let anyone talk you out of buying this valuable, although optional, benefit.
Fill out this Quote Request Form to see just how little difference it makes.
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As part of our auto policy, Oregon requires that we purchase insurance to cover ourselves in case someone hits us who doesn’t have insurance. But why? If it’s the law, every car on the street should have insurance. “I’m paying for what someone else should buy? That doesn’t seem fair.”
People still drive without insurance as strong as our laws are, even with severe penalties for disobeying them. The threat of a fine and impoundment of the automobile isn’t significant enough to get people to stop driving uncovered. Estimates vary, but owners operate about 30% of the cars you see on the highway without insurance. What’s worse, if you are involved in an accident, the drivers of that 30% are likely to take off if their car is still drivable, leaving you in a hit-and-run situation.
Luckily, the language of the auto policy provides for payment to hospitals and doctors if you receive injuries because of a hit-and-run driver.
You can also purchase an optional endorsement that covers your car against uninsured drivers as well. It’s cheap, and we highly recommend it.
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Everyone’s talking about the shortage of goods. You can go to the grocery store or your local pharmacy and see a good portion of the shelves are empty. People who have hoarded certain items are selling at scalping prices.
For the first time in auto manufacturing history, cars are appreciating rather than depreciating. Insurance companies must pay much more for a totaled vehicle today than they did just a year ago. Even though you see dealer lots packed with cars, there is a shortage of automobiles. Parts for new cars are hard to find, and news stories report that shipping ports are jammed with products from other countries without workers to process them. It appears to be a tumultuous time for buying and selling certain commodities.
Many of our customers have experienced four-month wait times to settle a claim. A year ago, the same claim would have resolved in a week, even during the worst time of the lock-down. Why? Because of lack of parts to fix the car and people to process the claim. Body shops have cars stacked up, waiting for the parts to be delivered.
What can you do? Not much, but wait. You could search junkyards for parts on crashed vehicles like yours, but wait times for shipping and prices might be as much as waiting for the new piece to arrive. Which cars are better for parts availability? It’s impossible to say. A neighbor drives a foreign-made vehicle. She waited three months to have a used computer board shipped and installed, at twice the price of new, because the manufacturer couldn’t get the chip from another country. A customer with a similar problem drives a domestic vehicle and got the part in three days.
Whether it’s a mechanical failure or a car crash, expect delays in getting the parts to fix your car if it’s not declared a total loss.