No Fault Car Ins Vs. Fault Car Ins. (car insurance, deductible)

icelady · 09-02-2007, 07:13 AM

Hi everyone,
I have lived in South Fl. for over 28 years. I would like to explain the difference between No fault car ins. and Fault car ins,due to the fact our Govn. wants to become a FAULT STATE with car ins. It is State Farm Ins. Co. who is pushing the Fault car ins. State Farm is stating us as drivers will get a decrease in our ins. payments. Yes that will happen. OK so alot of you are thinking this is great. No, it is not. So let me explain the difference between No Fault and Fault car ins.

NO FAULT- This means when there is a crash let us say you are stopped at a red light and some one going 45mph hits you from behind. That driver is at fault.( It will be hard for the Ins. co to dispute who is at fault.) You are rushed to the hospital due to injuries. This is where NO FAULT kicks in. As long as you have PIP personal injury protaction (which everyone should have 10,000.00 it is the law now)
Your ins co. pays for your med. then your ins. co will sue the ins. co who is at fault to recoup the money. (I hope everyone can follow that)

So in other words No Fault is only dealing with crashes with injuries. No Fault pays for injuries this is why it is mandetory to have PIP. No Fault Has NOTHING TO DO WITH WHO IS AT FAULT.
Another example You are at a store in the parking aisli stopped.
you are waiting for a car to pull out of a space. All of a sudden a different car which is next to you in a spot begins to reverse and hits the side of your car. That person IS AT FAULT. The driver did not look behind to see if it was clear.
Ok so hope fully you understand what NO Fault is.

Here we go with FAULT INS. If the state of Fl. goes with Fault Ins this will mean drivers do not have to carry PIP also maybe no car ins. So if you get hit by a driver who is at Fault and you are injuried you will have to personal sue the driver and you will have to pay out of your pocket for the medical bill. The other possiablity is your medical ins. If you have med. ins. WILL PAY FOR your injuries. So if we a citizens need to go through are private medical ins. guess what can happen. YES, our med ins will increase.
Well I typed fast but hopefully you get the drift of this.
Have a great day. Icelady

Lilybeans · 09-02-2007, 08:33 AM

Getting rid of no fault only benefits the insurance companies. That is why they are pushing do hard for it.

icelady · 09-02-2007, 08:50 AM

Yes that is correct and I think it will happen in Oct. Once again the hard working citizen will get the worst of it

wellsw · 09-18-2007, 05:43 PM

In your example where you are sitting at a red light and someone runs into you at 45mph and you have $10,000 in PIP as required by law, who pays for medical bills in excess of $10,000?

Thanks.

SouthernBelle3 · 09-18-2007, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wellsw

In your example where you are sitting at a red light and someone runs into you at 45mph and you have $10,000 in PIP as required by law, who pays for medical bills in excess of $10,000?

Thanks.

Good Question. I would like to know too.

By the way, my insurance compny offered me a similiar policy add on for about what I was paying before the changes take place due to the sunset of the law in October. The difference for one car for a $25,000 policy replacement for PIP was about $10.00 more a month, but being the policy dropped $10.00 a month , I'm not really missing anything.
I signed up for it. My med ins deductibles can be up to $4000.00 and the hospital can get impatient for their money while you attempt to recover the damages if some uninsured driver hits you and then disappears.

Lilybeans · 09-18-2007, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wellsw

In your example where you are sitting at a red light and someone runs into you at 45mph and you have $10,000 in PIP as required by law, who pays for medical bills in excess of $10,000?

Thanks.

The other driver's liability insurance-that's the point of liability.Or your medical insurance. Or you. Unfortunately, many people only carry the bare minimum 10K PIP. Therefore, you really should have high uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. That is maxed out at you liability limit, so if you have 100K liability, you can get 100K UM. It seems like a lot of people that cause accidents have no insurance, so UM is very important. Also, if you have more than one car on the policy, make sure your coverage can be stacked, which means you can add the coverages for each car together.

You can also get medical payments coverage.

stacylee926 · 09-19-2007, 07:29 AM

Being in Virginia with regular fault insurance....
Are you worried that your medical insurance will increase if your car insurance decreases??

I think that most companies in the US offer medical insurance to their employee's and the employee usually pays a small fee out of their paycheck based on the coverage they chose. In these cases the employers are paying a large piece of the insurance for you - and this is a benefit to you. So medical insurance increases would be minimal.

My guess is that the majority of medical claims is NOT from car accidents. If I was in a car accident that was not my fault and injured - either my personal medical insurance would pay or if I was looking for some 'compensation' for that accident, I would sue the other driver. However, the 2 insurance companies usually work to take care of you and offer you a settlement before that point. I have been sued twice for car accidents (over 15 years ago). One was ridiculous and they got about 3k and that didn't even cover atty fees. In another I was sued for 1.5 million dollars!!!! My insurance offered her 75k to settle at one point and she declined. 8 years later we ended up in a jury trial and after 2 days she got 4500 dollars!!!! 8 years of legal fees.. haha. So it really isn't that bad.

Several weeks ago when I was in Florida for vacation, we found that the drivers were really aggressive (nice way to put it). My theory is that it might be due to the insurance situation. Just a thought.....

I would love to see no fault insurance go away before we decide to move down!

Ladywithafan · 09-19-2007, 09:32 AM

Maybe I'm missing something here...In the two accidents I've been in since 1991, none of the people who hit me had insurance...mine always paid for me & my rates with the "NO FAULT" went up...

One accident was while I was doing the "classic": sitting at a red light & got smacked from behind.

One accident was a T-Bone...my 4Runner took a hit on the passenger side...$5K worth of damage was done to my vehicle, wasn't my fault, and yes, my insurance went up.

So I'm not sure about this whole issue...What's PIP doing for me?

cmj_fla · 09-19-2007, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ladywithafan

Maybe I'm missing something here...In the two accidents I've been in since 1991, none of the people who hit me had insurance...mine always paid for me & my rates with the "NO FAULT" went up...

One accident was while I was doing the "classic": sitting at a red light & got smacked from behind.

One accident was a T-Bone...my 4Runner took a hit on the passenger side...$5K worth of damage was done to my vehicle, wasn't my fault, and yes, my insurance went up.

So I'm not sure about this whole issue...What's PIP doing for me?

PIP is only for personal injuries (and loss of work due to injuries) and not damage to the vehicle. The only thing "special" about PIP is the Tort protection aspect of it. Meaning, someone can not sue for "pain and suffering" unless it is something like permanent disfigurement, loss of limbs, death etc. Med Pay will do exactly what PIP will excluding the Tort exemption and it will cost less in most cases. Plus, you now have your right to sue (which is a double-edged sword). IMO, no one should be driving around on 10/20 for liability or Uninsured Motorist. Get a minimum of 100/300 for Liability and UM and 25K in Med Pay and then you will not even miss PIP. Shop around for good rates because it doesn't cost a lot more going from 10/20 to 100/300. I am neither for nor against PIP but I believe either way you can be properly insured if you choose the right coverages. The jury will be out for awhile regarding the civil liability aspect of this loss (haha sorry for the pun) and how that will effect our court system here in Florida.

Ladywithafan · 09-19-2007, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmj_fla

PIP is only for personal injuries (and loss of work due to injuries) and not damage to the vehicle. The only thing "special" about PIP is the Tort protection aspect of it. Meaning, someone can not sue for "pain and suffering" unless it is something like permanent disfigurement, loss of limbs, death etc. Med Pay will do exactly what PIP will excluding the Tort exemption and it will cost less in most cases. Plus, you now have your right to sue (which is a double-edged sword). IMO, no one should be driving around on 10/20 for liability or Uninsured Motorist. Get a minimum of 100/300 for Liability and UM and 25K in Med Pay and then you will not even miss PIP. Shop around for good rates because it doesn't cost a lot more going from 10/20 to 100/300. I am neither for nor against PIP but I believe either way you can be properly insured if you choose the right coverages. The jury will be out for awhile regarding the civil liability aspect of this loss (haha sorry for the pun) and how that will effect our court system here in Florida.

Thank you! I will make sure I change my coverages in those areas!