Grit dog wrote:
^Great explanation.
Question since you’re knowledgeable.
RE uninsured or under insured for property.
Let’s say you have full coverage on vehicle.
Accident that is other party’s fault and they don’t have insurance. Or under insured.
Will your collision policy not cover your vehicle in that event?
I don’t believe collision coverage is predicated on fault. Is it ?
Or another way...what good is uninsured coverage if you already have collision?
TIA
Starting with a disclaimer, free advice from a total stranger on the internet is worth less than you paid for it. Trust me when I tell you, don't trust me.
So for your first question about coverage under your collision policy, yes, your collision covers your loss regardless of fault. You're literally paying for a policy to cover negligence, and it doesn't matter who was negligent. People typically try to go through the other party's carrier just to avoid paying their deductible and to avoid raising their own rates. Honestly though, there's a lot of voodoo involved with underwriting and I don't know what does or doesn't cause your rates to increase. It's my understanding that your rates won't go up if it isn't your fault, but I have a hunch that there's a point where you'll be cancelled for being plain ol' unlucky.
I didn't want to get into it, but there's another esoteric insurance term called "subrogation", and that's where your carrier pays you out and then goes after somebody else to collect (or subrogate) from the other party and/or their carrier. So if someone wrecks into you, you have every right to just take the easy route and go through your own policy for your damages, pay your own deductible, and let your carrier subrogate to collect. As a courtesy, they will typically go after the full amount and then refund your deductible after they collected, but that takes time.
For your policy limits question, that's really a matter of preference and cost. Higher limits cost more. Also, some carriers have underwriting rules that cap your limits. The rule of thumb though is that you typically buy uninsured property limits and uninsured bodily injury limits that match your own liability limits. So if you buy a liability policy that matches the value of your largest assets (usually the value of your house), then you'd also buy uninsured limits that match those liability limits. They probably won't let you be lopsided though, so you can't buy the legal minimum for your own liability and then buy high limits for your uninsured coverage. Just like they won't let you buy a $1M umbrella policy (cheap) without also having high limits on your liability (not so cheap), especially since the umbrella would be secondary to your auto liability limits.
Back to the collision question... I always laugh on this forum when I see the weight police post that your insurance won't cover you if you're towing overweight. Read your policy if you want, but I've never ever seen a policy that excludes that. The policies are literally there to cover stupidity. That's what insurance is for. Now you can get EXTRA stupid to the point where you make them mad enough to cancel your policy, but they still have to pay out the claims first. I can't even imagine how many things would have to happen though before you'd get cancelled for towing overweight. First, somehow that fact would have to come out. I have no idea how that would be unearthed in the context of a claim, but let's just say your wreck was enough of a doozie that you needed a full blown accident investigation and somehow the LEOs did the math and figured out that you were overweight. So if that fact made its way into the police report, then its in writing and now there's a possibility it will be known. When the claim rep gets the policy report, the first thing they'll do is flip to the conclusion where the LEO assigns fault. If the fault is clear, they file away the report and pay the other guy's claim. If by some fluke the claim rep was bored enough to read the entire report, then they might see the part about the weight being a contributing factor (this isn't like your BAL where you're automatically negligent if there's liquor in your blood). So the claim rep reads that and says "huh, I wonder what that means" and still files it away. Or if the rep knows a little more about towing, then rep says "huh, I already knew that our guy was at fault, but now he's REALLY at fault". Maybe it becomes an issue if you're fighting a comparative negligence claim where you both blew a stop sign and you both share a percentage of fault. But if you were already at fault, you can't really be 101% at fault.
I guess it's too late to say "long story short", but somehow the claim rep would have to get the info that you were overweight, prove it (only a police report would prove it, unless the rep sends someone out to read your stickers and understands how to do the math), and then specifically flag your account to Underwriting so that they can consider what to do.
They have to pay the claim though. They can raise your rates or cancel you after they pay the claim, but they still have to pay it. Stupidity is absolutely a covered peril.
