Steve Levin
Master of Disaster
One thing about US insurance limits is that, for reasons I can't quite fathom, it's quite legal in most states to carry a ridiculously low level of insurance to be legal.
In California I believe the limit to be legal is structured something like a total for bodily injury of $30,000 (with a maximum payout of $15,000 per person) and $5,000 in property damage (i.e., what they smash up on the other person's car, etc).
That's a joke, in my opinion, especially in 2010 (I believe the limits were set in the early 1980s and not altered since then, but they were very low then)
Heck, we had a parking lot incident that whacked a door on my wife's Scion xB (Toyota bB inother markets) and it cost nearly $2,500 to fix. I can't see $5,000 covering much of anything outside a parking lot these days...
And the bodily injury limits are just as much a joke; you can do real harm to someone that may have long term effects on them. A friend of mine, for example, had his jaw shattered when we were 17; while he still works today at age 43, it's pretty clear that the arthritis is setting into the jaw that wouldn't be normal otherwise. It's not clear that the pain won't be seriously debilitating in another 10 years or so... well before he would otherwise stop working. In his case, though, he got more than $15,000 (I think it was $125,000) and that meant he was able to buy a home much earlier than most people, and it's appreciated, etc., so he's got money set aside so that he won't HAVE to work full time and still be okay on income.
Long story short, I think it's criminal that it's legal to drive without at least $300,000 in coverage these days. But the artificially low limits are why I think people hear of cheap US insurance rates. But in truth, it's BS insurance, it's really saying "I have a piece of paper that's not worth much and won't do anything in anything more than a fender bender."
Steve
In California I believe the limit to be legal is structured something like a total for bodily injury of $30,000 (with a maximum payout of $15,000 per person) and $5,000 in property damage (i.e., what they smash up on the other person's car, etc).
That's a joke, in my opinion, especially in 2010 (I believe the limits were set in the early 1980s and not altered since then, but they were very low then)
Heck, we had a parking lot incident that whacked a door on my wife's Scion xB (Toyota bB inother markets) and it cost nearly $2,500 to fix. I can't see $5,000 covering much of anything outside a parking lot these days...
And the bodily injury limits are just as much a joke; you can do real harm to someone that may have long term effects on them. A friend of mine, for example, had his jaw shattered when we were 17; while he still works today at age 43, it's pretty clear that the arthritis is setting into the jaw that wouldn't be normal otherwise. It's not clear that the pain won't be seriously debilitating in another 10 years or so... well before he would otherwise stop working. In his case, though, he got more than $15,000 (I think it was $125,000) and that meant he was able to buy a home much earlier than most people, and it's appreciated, etc., so he's got money set aside so that he won't HAVE to work full time and still be okay on income.
Long story short, I think it's criminal that it's legal to drive without at least $300,000 in coverage these days. But the artificially low limits are why I think people hear of cheap US insurance rates. But in truth, it's BS insurance, it's really saying "I have a piece of paper that's not worth much and won't do anything in anything more than a fender bender."
Steve