It is important to understand the various types of automobile insurance coverages so that you can purchase the appropriate types and amounts of coverage needed to fully protect you and your family in the event of an vehicle accident. This article will focus on the types of automobile insurance coverages related to physical injuries, not property damage.

LIABILITY COVERAGE: If you cause a wreck and injure others, then you owe those whom you injured compensation for their harms and losses, such as medical expenses, lost wages, permanent injury, physical pain and mental suffering, scarring, etc.

Automobile liability coverage pays that money for you. Before this coverage gets paid to someone else, either your insurance company must acknowledge that you caused the wreck, or you must have been determined at-fault in court.

Insurance Law issues can be pretty complicated. We’re her to help answer your questions – Danny Glover

The minimum required liability coverage amount for most automobiles in North Carolina is referred to as “minimum limits”: $30,000 per person/$60,000 per accident. However, with medical costs being as high as they are, the minimum $30,000 liability policy is often insufficient to fully protect you if you seriously injure someone else.

In the event that you have insufficient liability coverage amounts to fully compensate those that you injured, then you would owe the remainder personally.

Therefore, I recommend that you purchase a minimum of $100,000 per person/$300,000 per accident. This would mean that if you cause a wreck and injure other(s), then you have $100,000 of coverage to pay to any one person and $300,000 total to pay to everyone injured a wreck, in the event that more than one person is injured.

SEE MORE: How to use insurance when injured in a car wreck

MEDICAL PAYMENTS COVERAGE: This is a voluntary, no-fault coverage that benefits you by paying money to you if you incur medical bills related to a wreck, regardless of who caused the wreck.

Typically, you can purchase $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000 worth of “med. pay.” coverage.

SEE MORE: North Carolina Motor Vehicle Liability Policy Law 2017

Once you incur medical expenses and present those bills to your automobile insurance company, then your automobile insurance company writes you a check for the full amount of the original bill, or up to the amount of your “med. pay.” coverage limits, whichever is less.

SEE MORE: 4 Ways Your Automobile Insurance Can Increase

Practically, this money comes in handy if you are in a wreck and have to pay 1) health insurance co-pays or deductibles, 2) ve

hicle repairs, 3) a new vehicle down payment, and/or 4) ordinary bills if you are out-of-work due to injuries.

UNINSURED/UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE: This is perhaps the most important, and usually cheapest, coverage that you should purchase. Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage protects you by paying you for your harms and losses if someone else caused the wreck and injured you but that person did not have any automobile insurance, i.e., uninsured.

Underinsured motorist coverage applies if that other person did not have enough automobile insurance to fully compensate you, i.e., underinsured. UM/UIM coverage can be purchased up to $1,000,000.00, typically for just a few hundred dollars per year. UM/UIM coverage not only protects you, but it also protects any relative who was residing with you on the date of the wreck, regardless of what vehicle he/she was in when injured, whether owned by you or not, whether covered under your automobile policy or not, and even if he/she was injured by a vehicle while riding a bike or while walking.

As you can see, this is very important coverage to protect you and your family.

Danny Glover, Jr.
Glover Law Firm
406 S. Griffin St., Suite B
Elizabeth City, N.C. 27909
252-299-5300
danny@dannygloverlawfirm.com

Proof of Insurance

This applies to both automobile, homeowners, business and umbrella liability insurance coverages, as well as health insurance.

Unfortunately, the fact that neither side to a lawsuit can tell the jury about how much liability or health insurance the other side has often complicates the case and/or confuses the jury.

In North Carolina evidence of insurance is typically not admissible in court – Danny Glover

Many times a jury incorrectly concludes that a plaintiff who is suing for injuries has already received all of the other person’s automobile insurance and is in court simply to try to get the other person’s personal money or assets.

Or, sometimes the jury concludes that the responsible person must have no insurance or the case would have already been settled with the insurance company.

See More: Personal Injury Cases in Eastern NC

This is almost never true, as insurance companies typically will not pay any money for injuries or losses until or unless the entire case has been resolved.

Therefore, if you are ever sitting on the jury of a personal injury case, never assume that the plaintiff has already been paid anything, because most of the time the plaintiff has not been paid anything, and never assume that the responsible person does not have insurance, because most of the time they do.

Juries also often incorrectly conclude that the plaintiff’s health insurance has already paid all of the medical bills.

See More: North Carolina Rules of Evidence

This is also often untrue, as many health insurance companies, as well as Medicare, are considered secondary payors that do not have to pay until the primary insurance company, i.e. the automobile liability insurance company, has paid what it owes.

Further, more and more medical providers, including our local hospital, are refusing to bill health insurance companies for car wreck medical treatment.

This is because the hospital or other medical provider is trying to get paid more from the car wreck settlement than it would be paid by the person’s health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.

If you are ever sitting on the jury for a personal injury case, you should assume that none of the medical bills have been paid – Danny Glover

These things often result in a person being injured through no fault of their own but being unable to use their own health insurance while at the same time having to deal with an automobile or homeowners insurance company that will not pay a fair settlement.

In fact, is you are going to assume anything, it would be that none of the medical bills have been paid.

Besides, if some of the medical bills have already been paid by health insurance, oftentimes the plaintiff will have to reimburse the health insurance company, especially Medicare, Medicaid and other government benefit sources, from any personal injury settlement or recovery that the plaintiff receives, which is yet another thing that a jury is often not allowed to hear about.

Settlement negotiations:

In most court cases neither side is allowed to mention or present evidence of any previous settlement negotiations or previous settlement offers by either side.

The applies in both criminal and civil lawsuits.

Again, it would be a mistake to assume that one or both sides has not already tried to settle or resolve the case.

Most times, there have already been extensive settlement negotiations, but the two parties to the case, for any number of reasons, have been unable to resolve the case short of a trial.

Danny Glover, Jr.
Glover Law Firm
Danny@DannyGloverLawFirm.com
252-299-5300
Past President, North Carolina Advocates for Justice