Liability Insurance Basics:

• Liability bodily injury protects you for a claim filed by someone who was injured in an automobile accident for which you are legally responsible
• Liability property protection protects you for a claim concerning damage to another person's auto or other property resulting from an accident for which you are legally liable
• The amount of protect you have is stated in your policy, such as the $25000 - $50000 - $25000 mentioned earlier. You can buy higher limits, and probably should, since $25,000 property damage would fall short of repairing many of today's cars

Comprehensive Insurance Basics:

• Comprehensive coverage is designed to protect your vehicle when it is damaged by something other than a collision with another vehicle...like a collision with a deer.
• Also covered are fire, theft, vandalism, water, hail, windstorm and flood
• Can be purchased with or without a deductible, which is the amount you pay out of your pocket before the insurance company pays anything

Collision Insurance Basics:

• Collision coverage pays for your vehicle when you collide with another vehicle or object.
• Collision coverage protects your vehicle regardless of who is at fault in the accident
• You must pay a deductible in order to have your vehicle repaired

When you finance a vehicle purchase, the loan company will probably require you to have comprehensive and collision coverage and have the loan company named as a loss payee in order to protect their interest in your vehicle.

Personal Injury Protection Insurance Basics:

• Personal injury protection has three parts: medical payments, lost wages, death benefit that pays expenses for persons riding in your car.
• You can purchase any of the three, all of the three or none of the three.
• Medical payments includes doctor bills, x-rays, ambulance and funeral charges.
• Lost wages has certain restrictions and, in some cases, is not even offered to you
• Death benefits pay a fixed amount for the death of persons riding in your car

Uninsured Motorist Insurance Basics:

• Uninsured motorist protection pays for expenses you incur when you are involved in an accident with someone who has no auto insurance.
• Uninsured motorist protection has two parts: bodily injury and property damage. You may purchase bodily injury coverage by itself. In order to purchase property damage coverage, you must also purchase bodily injury coverage.
• Arkansas law requires that your uninsured motorist protection be equal to the bodily injury limits of your liability policy. In other words, your insurance company cannot offer you less coverage for uninsured motorist than you have for bodily injury.
• If liability insurance is required, why should you have uninsured motorist protection? Do you think everyone driving in Arkansas is 100% covered by automobile liability coverage? What if their policy lapsed and they were on the way to buy new coverage when they hit you? It happens.

Underinsured Motorist Insurance Basics:

• Underinsured motorist coverage pays for your bodily injury claims if they are larger than the amount of insurance held by the other driver.
• Your coverage for these excess expenses is limited by the amount of coverage you purchase.

Arkansas has an Assigned Risk Pool for persons who are unable to purchase liability coverage in the regular insurance market. Your agent can apply for this coverage for you.