Friday, February 27, 2009

What if I don't have Car Insurance?

By Samantha A. Bow

In an ideal world, nobody would get into car accidents because everyone would follow the traffic laws and nobody would make mistakes. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. We do get into accidents and we do have to pay for the damages they cause. In order to pay for the damages of these accidents, we buy car insurance.

Once you have a car and are ready to put it on the road, you need to get insurance. Look for a policy carefully. Don't just go for the cheapest one or the first one you can find. You want a low price, but you want to have good coverage. If you get bad coverage, you could end up paying even more than what you are saving on cheap monthly payments. Get a car and get insurance, these are your first steps.

Do you have to buy car insurance? If you live in the United States, you do have to buy car insurance. You can't have a car on the road that is not insured. This not only causes problems for you in an accident, but with the other person if there was someone else involved.

When you get into a car accident with another vehicle involved, both insurance companies, or the same one if you both have the same insurance company, have to communicate and arrange payments. Without insurance, you will have to pay a lot of money and you will get into a lot of trouble.

Insurance will save you money over time. Let's say you are paying $100 a month to insure one car. Over the course of two years you pay $2,400. Then, let's say you get into a car accident, and your car and the other car are totaled.

If you were at fault and both cars were totaled, you would have to pay the entire value of both cars. This will depend on the age of the car and type of the car. If the value of both cars put together was $10,000 and you were covered under insurance, you would only have to pay a deductible, which you decide on when you set up the policy. It's usually just a few hundred dollars.

If your deductible was $300 and you had insurance, you'd pay that plus it would cost you altogether that and the $2,400 from the policy for a total cost of $2,700. If you had no insurance, you would have saved the $2,400 in insurance and would have to pay the entire $10,000. That is a difference of $7,300.

You might think you'll never get into an accident, but accidents aren't planned. You never know when they might happen. Your only other option would be to walk or ride your bike around. Get insurance and pay the fees. It makes life much easier and isn't that expensive anyway. - 15224

About the Author: