This week, State Farm, who is Louisiana’s largest auto insurer, announced that it will lower auto insurance rates starting in April by an average of 3.2 percent for its roughly 1 million Louisiana policyholders. This is their third rate decrease in nine months.
This may be a good time to use those savings to up your uninsured motorist coverage.
When you sign up for automobile insurance, you have the option of purchasing uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist insurance in addition to your liability coverage. Uninsured/underinsured motorist insurance is insurance that you purchase that steps in to cover you when another driver is not insured for injuries that they cause in a car accident or does not have enough insurance to cover your damages that you sustained after being injured in a car accident. In fact, in Louisiana, you have to specifically reject this type of coverage if you do not want to purchase it. While it may seem tempting to save money every month by declining this coverage, you may want to think twice.
In Louisiana, it is required under the law to have $15,000/30,000 of automobile insurance on a personal vehicle. Despite this requirement, it is estimated that 13 percent of drivers in Louisiana are not insured at all and an astounding number carry only the minimum amount of insurance on their vehicle and in New Orleans, that number is even higher. That is, if you are involved in a car accident it is highly likely that the other driver is insured with only $15,000 of coverage if at all, which is not enough to cover even minor injuries in some cases that are caused by the car accident. Too many times, we have had to break the news to seriously injured clients that the driver that injured them did not have enough insurance to compensate them for their injuries. Accordingly, securing uninsured motorist insurance can help you to protect you in these situations. It will provide you the peace of mind that even if you are seriously injured in a car accident, you will be able to recover your medical bills, pain and suffering, and loss wages for any time you may have missed from work due to your injuries.
Call your insurance agent today to assess whether you are protecting yourself and your family adequately and if you can use these State Farm savings to re-invest in your security.
Megan C. Kiefer is a partner and trial attorney at Kiefer & Kiefer, who specializes in Metairie personal injury and New Orleans personal injury litigation and uninsured motorist litigation following a car accident.
This is being provided for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice.
