Maryland car accident insurance, what can you do to protect your family?

As we reported recently, Maryland law with regard to minimum required liability insurance limits will change next January. http://www.maryland-law.com/library/maryland-car-crash-insurance-law-to-change.cfm

The inevitable questions are, will the legal changes provide sufficient protection for Maryland families and if not, what should we do ?

The answers are, no the new insurance law will not do much to protect Maryland drivers and their passengers and what you should do is look at your policy in light of this article.

The reason the new law will provide negligible help is because the legal change only raises the required insurance from $20,000.00 per individual injury claim to $30,000.00. Now either $20,000.00 or $30,000.00 is more than enough for run-of -the -mill car crash claims but when we talk about Maryland major accident claims neither amount will be remotely enough to cover any kind of significant injury. Hospital bills, surgical costs, therapy and lost time from work can eat up $30,000.00 quickly.

The law also provides an increase for each accident. The law moves the minimum limits from $40,000.00 to $60,000.00 per accident. In other words a car can be in a crash and have 5 occupants who then have to divide the $60,000.00 5 ways. Thus, a major Maryland car collision can lead to 5 victims each on average having $12,000.00 to satisfy their claims.

So what can you do to provide sufficient protection ? The answer is relatively simple, buy more uninsured motorist coverage . Uninsured motorist coverage is somewhat misnamed. It should be called uninsured/uninsured motorist coverage.

An example, a bad crash is caused by a driver with Maryland's present-day minimum car crash limits of $20,000.00/$40,000.00. He injures 4 occupants of another car badly. If the injured owner has purchased uninsured motorist coverage of $100,000.00/$300,000.00 the 4 victims in his car can split the $40,000.00 of the insurance held by the driver who caused the accident and then claim the additional value of their claims against the uninsured motorist coverage, up to $100,000.00 per person.

The cost of uninsured motorist coverage is low and the peace of mind it provides is enormous. In our example we used $100,000.00/$300,000.00 but the fact is that uninsured motorist coverage can be purchased in greater amounts with the cost of increased coverage being relatively small.

So protect yourself and your family buy enough uninsured motorist coverage, you will be glad you did.




Clark & Steinhorn serve the following areas from their office in Beltsville-College Park, Maryland:

Prince Georges County, MD: Beltsville, Laurel, College Park, Bowie, Hyattsville, Calverton, Adelphi, Riverdale, Lanham, New Carrolton, Greenbelt, Bladensburg, Mitchelville, Landover, Cheverly, Capitol Heights, District Heights , Oxon Hill, Clinton, Seat Pleasant, Upper Marlboro, Suitland, Temple Hills.