Reader question:

What is overlapping car insurance coverage, and how do I get rid of it?

Anne

Thanks for your question, Anne.

Overlapping car insurance coverage occurs when you have several different types of coverage which may cover the same thing. For example, if you have personal injury protection coverage, but you also have health insurance coverage, then it might not be necessary for you to have the first one. Normally, though, these types of coverage are somewhat necessary for people, depending on the circumstances. If you are the owner of a high performance car, then you need to put your brain to thinking about whether your overlapping car insurance coverage is worth getting rid of or worth keeping.

To explore my previous example of personal injury protection coverage, think about the benefits that are offered by personal injury protection car insurance coverage. While your health insurance might pay for your hospital bills and emergency room visits regardless of your fault in a car insurance accident, what about when it comes to lost wages? It is for the lost wages part that my husband and I decided to get personal injury protection, because while I would probably still be able to do my work while injured, if he got into an accident and was injured then we would probably lose his part of the income for a while, because he has a very active job. Even if your job isn’t active, sitting in an office all day might not be possible if you have a back problem as a result of a car insurance accident, so really there is a way for an accident to interfere in any type of job performance, unless your job is staring at the ceiling and blinking.

With personal injury protection, you can be compensated for your losses in wages for a period after the car accident, sometimes even for years. Another type of car insurance coverage that often overlaps is uninsured motorist coverage. If you already have comprehensive and collision coverage, you might not need this, but first of all you should make sure that your insurance rates wouldn’t go up if you had to get a collision settlement because of an accident with an uninsured driver.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.