Categories: AUTOMOTIVE

“Medical Payments” Coverage on Auto Policy is Not Necessary

When purchasing auto insurance coverage, your insurance agent will often select the coverages to be applied in your policy. However, as a consumer, you do have the option to modify and even delete or upgrade certain types of coverage, within your statutory limitations. It is important, therefore, to ask your agent about the actual breakdown of coverages and then to research the dynamic of each to determine what is actually necessary.

One form of coverage that is often slipped into the auto insurance policy is coverage known as “medical payments. While many auto insurance companies recommend this coverage, personal injury attorneys disagree. When filing a claim for damages related to an automobile accident, there is question whether or not the additional premium paid for “medical payments” is actually worth the coverage on the auto insurance policy.

“Medical payments” provisions, on your auto insurance policy, simply means your auto insurance company will be responsible for “first party” medical expenses. In other words, if you are injured in an auto accident, your auto policy will cover your medical expenses. Why is this coverage often not necessary? In an automobile accident where you are not at-fault, the other individual’s insurance company will become liable for your medical payments under the bodily injury provisions of their policy. In an accident in which there is no-fault, or you are “at-fault”, your personal health insurance company will manage these costs.

As a general rule, the only time “medical payments” coverage should be added to an auto insurance policy is when you, as the driver and holder of that policy, is currently lacking in health insurance. If you are one of the millions of Americans currently uninsured, adding this medical payments coverage to your auto insurance will ensure you have some degree of coverage for health expenses should you be involved in an auto accident.

Auto insurance agents traditionally add the medical payments coverage to every policy sold from their office. Because there is a premium attached to medical payments coverage, and your agent earns commission on each aspect of coverage sold, this coverage is often not described in detail and, oftentimes, not given as an optional coverage. If you are paying high auto insurance premiums, and you desire to lower your auto insurance premiums, begin by first checking for the presence of medical payments coverage. In most states, this coverage is optional and can be deleted, saving hundreds of dollars each year in auto insurance premium costs.