Personal Injury Protection
(also known as "No Fault Insurance")

New York State Law requires this insurance.  The minimum requirement is $50,000 to pay for medical expenses, loss of income, and other miscellaneous expenses regardless of fault.  This coverage provides the following benefits.

• medical expenses – covers your various medical expenses
• loss of income – a maximum of $2,000 a month or 80% of your current monthly income (which ever is less)
• other expenses – $25 a day for reasonable expenses
• death benefit – $2,000

Optional Basic Economic Loss (OBEL)

In a recent ruling by New York State, maximum loss of income received from no-fault was increased from $1,000 to $2,000 a month for 36 months.  However, with a $50,000 limit, coverage may be used well before the 36 months.  This is where OBEL comes in to help you out.  This coverage provides an extra amount on top of the no-fault limit.

Bodily Injury Liability

Required by law, bodily injury protects you if you are responsible for an accident in which someone is injured or killed.  The minimum requirement is $25,000/$50,000, which means that the insurance company will only pay up to $25,000 per person injured and up to $50,000 per accident.  So if there is more than one person injured, the most you are covered for is $50,000.

Property Damage Liability

Required by law, property damage covers the damage your vehicle causes to someone else's property, such as your car running into someone's house or car.  The minimum requirement is $10,000, which means that the insurance company will only pay up to $10,000 for damage your vehicle does to someone else's property.

Uninsured Motorist

Uninsured motorist coverage pays for injuries sustained by you and your passengers caused by an uninsured motorist.  Underinsured motorist coverage pays when you or your passengers are injured as a result of negligence by someone with insufficient liability insurance to cover your losses. In New York State, you are required to carry at least statutory uninsured motorist with limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for those accidents that occur WITHIN New York State.  If you ever travel out of state, you should consider supplementary uninsured motorist coverage.  This provides the same limits as statutory uninsured motorist, but it extends coverage to accidents that occur outside of New York State.

Medical Payments

Medical payments insurance is coverage that reimburses you and your passengers (whether or not they are members of your family) for medical or funeral expenses stemming from an accident, regardless of who was responsible for the accident.

Collision

Collision coverage reimburses you for damage to your own car resulting from impact with another car or an object, such as a house.  This coverage is usually written with a $250 deductible, but may be higher or lower depending on your specific needs.

Other than Collision
(Comprehensive)

This coverage reimburses you for damage to your auto not caused by a collision.  Such losses include theft, hail, vandalism, or hitting an animal.

Split Limit

Split limits restrict the maximum amount that a policy will pay for a specific type of loss, such as property damage and bodily injury.  A split limit auto insurance policy, for example, might pay $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident in bodily injury benefits, and $10,000 in property damage per accident.  By contrast, a single limit policy might pay up to $60,000 for all property damage and bodily injury resulting from a single accident.  Although the total amount of coverage is the same, the single limit policy is more flexible, because it does not cap the amount that can be paid for any type of loss.

NOTE: difference between split limits and single limits below

Single Limit

A policy with a single limit of liability pays up to a single maximum amount for any type of liability loss. By contrast, a policy with split limits pays different maximum amounts for bodily injury and property damage.

NOTE: difference between split limits and single limits below