How much liability coverage?

October 5, 2005 10:50 PM

What's considered a standard "safe" amount of liability coverage to carry on your automobile insurance policy? (Oregon, USA; if that matters)
posted by alan to travel & transportation (9 comments total)

As much as you can afford. Car crashes can be very expensive.
posted by b1tr0t at 12:52 AM on October 6, 2005

It depends on how much money you earn and the extent of your wealth. At a minimum, limits of $100,000 per occurrence. If you are earning above $50,000 per year and/or have assets that you would like to keep, $1 million per occurrence is well worth it.

The marginal cost - the difference to get $1 million over $100,000 - is not that great.

And do not forget uninsured/underinsured coverage. Protect yourself to the same extent that you protect everyone else.
posted by megatherium at 4:52 AM on October 6, 2005

FWIW, every province in Canada requires a minimum of one million dollars in liability coverage.
posted by winston at 6:32 AM on October 6, 2005

According to this, the minimums in Oregon are 25/50/10. That is, bodily injury coverage $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, property damage $10,000 per accident.

This probably is way too low if you own any property, $1 million in liability isn't that expensive.
posted by Marky at 6:55 AM on October 6, 2005

my dad has been selling insurance for 25 years. He says "if you can afford it, you don't have enough"
posted by CCK at 7:46 AM on October 6, 2005

my dad has been selling insurance for 25 years. He says "if you can afford it, you don't have enough"

Well, since I'm not buying from your dad, I'll keeping looking around ;)
posted by alan at 7:51 AM on October 6, 2005

Carry the highest limits that you can afford, because you're really protecting your own assets. The nice thing here is that it's generally a very small increase in premium when you go from state minimums to a healthy $300,000 per person, $300,000 per accident (which means that's the max amount of payout for all injured parties if you're found at fault in an accident) for Bodily Injury Liability, and say $100,000 for Property Damage Liability. Depending on your insurance company, you're really looking at about a $20.00 increase total over six months.

If you can't afford that, at least go for $100,000/$300,000/$100,000. Today, medical bills can be horrendous (especially if you consider multiple occupants in a vehicle and serious injury), and there are a lot of pricey vehicles being driven around (again, consider that your policy might have to cover multiple vehicles, depending on the accident). Even slightly higher limits would be completely and quickly exhausted by a bad accident involving three passengers in, say, a Range Rover.

HTH!
posted by mewithoutyou at 8:49 AM on October 6, 2005

The basic rule of thumb is that if you care whether or not your care explodes tommorow, you are underinsured. If you (financially) care whether or not you you cause a 5-car pile-up tommorow, you are underinsured. If you care whether your house burns down or you die or or get diagnosed with cancer or whatever tommorow, then you are underinsured.

That being said, I am underinsured. :P
posted by ChasFile at 11:55 AM on October 6, 2005

Alan I wasn't trying to be snarky, I was being honest. I think I have basically said the same as others, get as much as you can afford. Keep in mind you are protecting YOUR assets and YOUR future earnings.
posted by CCK at 1:14 PM on October 6, 2005