Lowering Your Liability Coverage - Is it a Good Idea?

When you’re looking for ways to lower your auto insurance premiums so you can have more money left over for trivialities like food and clothing it’s tempting to take the first answer that comes your way. Lowering your liability coverage to the bare minimum is the easiest, fastest and most efficient way to lower your auto insurance premiums in a very short amount of time; however, there’s a reason we learn to resist temptation at a young age!

Easiest doesn’t mean best, and lowering your liability coverage might be the worst mistake you could make when it comes to your auto insurance.

At first glance, lowering your liability coverage doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Every state has its own limits of liability coverage based on what they believe to be sufficient to meet the needs of most drivers involved in basic accidents-fender benders, in other words. Maybe a brief trip to the emergency room. Minimum liability coverage is the answer to the common rear ending. What it’s not, however, is sufficient to protect your assets if you’re involved in anything more serious.

Consider these numbers. The average emergency room run starts at $1,000 per head, and as the driver responsible for the accident (which is the only time you’d need your liability coverage anyway) you’re responsible for all of those bills. Now, assume you had three passengers in the car with you and the other car was carrying four, plus the driver. That’s $8,000 of the $30,000-50,000 most states require you to carry in bodily injury protection.

Now, let’s say at least two of those passengers was severely injured and needs to spend some time in the ICU. Visits to the ICU start at $5,000 PER DAY, and the average stay in the ICU is seven days. That’s $70,000 right there, plus the $2,000-$4,000 per day of their recovery. There’s your liability protection and a healthy chunk of your savings right there.

Now, assume that any car in which passengers had to spend a week in the ICU was essentially totaled as a result of the accident. That’s $10,000-$20,000 (or more) of the $15,000-25,000 you’re going to be required to carry in liability coverage.

You can already see why these numbers aren’t adding up!

Most leading experts recommend that regardless of where in the country you live, you carry a MINIMUM of $100,000 in liability coverage. That should protect you from everything but the most severe of accidents (there’s not much you can do to prepare yourself for being at the bottom of a ten car pileup) and will ensure you have the resources you need to bounce back without your life, your credit and your bank account in pieces.