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Personal Lines
Personal Auto
Types of Coverages
Liability
Liability coverage will pay for bodily injury and property damage for which any covered individual becomes legally responsible. A Personal Automobile Policy will cover you or any family member while using any automobile or trailer, and any person using your covered automobile with permission. The policy will pay up to the limits listed in your policy.
Collision
Collision means physical damage to your covered vehicle caused by an impact with another vehicle or object. This coverage pays the lesser of the cost of repair or Actual Cash Value of your automobile.
Comprehensive
This coverage pays the cost of repair or Actual Cash Value of your automobile less any deductible. Under comprehensive coverage, your insurer pays you, without regard to fault, for damage to your vehicle from all causes other than collision. Losses caused by the following are considered comprehensive claims: theft (of the car itself or its parts), fire, flood, windstorm, glass breakage, vandalism, hitting or being hit by an animal, or hitting or being hit by falling or flying objects.
Personal Injury Protection (PIP)
Also know as “No-Fault”, PIP is designed to pay promptly regardless of who might have been at fault or whether there was any negligence—for actual economic losses (meaning medical expenses, lost earnings, and other reasonable and necessary expenses related to injuries sustained), up to $50,000 per person (“basic No-Fault coverage”), to a driver or passenger injured in your car and to pedestrians injured by your car, because of its use or operation.
The purpose of PIP insurance is to restore individuals hurt in auto accidents to health and productivity as swiftly as possible. Because of New York’s No-Fault law, lawsuits due to auto accidents can be brought only for economic losses that exceed PIP benefits and for non-economic damages (such as pain and suffering) only if a “serious injury” (as defined in the Insurance Law) is sustained.
PIP, as the name suggests, is personal injury coverage and does not pay for auto body repair of your car or damage to any other party’s motor vehicle or real or personal property. PIP is also primary to health insurance, which means it pays first in the event injury is due to an auto accident.
Under this coverage, your insurer pays you and relatives living with you for economic losses arising from injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents anywhere within the United States, its territories and possessions, or Canada. It also covers any passengers injured in accidents in New York State while in your vehicle, as well as any guest passengers who are New York State residents injured in your vehicle anywhere in the United States, its territories and possessions, or Canada, if they are not covered under another auto insurance policy in New York State.
Pedestrians injured by motor vehicles in the State are also protected by No-Fault.
Basic No-Fault auto insurance coverage includes:
• necessary medical and rehabilitation expenses (in accordance with established fee schedules);
• 80% of lost earnings from work, up to a maximum payment of $2,000 per month for up to three years;
• up to $25 a day, for up to a year from the date of the accident, to reimburse other reasonable and necessary expenses resulting from the auto accident; and
• a $2,000 death benefit (in addition to the $50,000 basic No-Fault limit), payable to the estate of a person eligible for No-Fault benefits but killed in a motor vehicle accident. However, under most insurance policies, a person will be ineligible for No-Fault benefits, if:
• driving while intoxicated or impaired by use of a drug that contributes to the accident;
• intentionally causing his or her own injuries;
• riding an all terrain vehicle (ATV) or a motorcycle (as operator or passenger);
• injured while committing a felony;
• injured while in a vehicle known to be
• an owner of an uninsured vehicle.
Uninsured Motorists (UM) Coverage
Your Uninsured Motorist Coverage will provide protection when an uninsured driver, who is at-fault, injures you or another covered individual. It also provides property damage coverage.
Underinsured Motorists (UIM) Coverage
This coverage will provide protection when an underinsured driver, who is at-fault, causes injury to a covered individual. An underinsured driver is one whose limits of liability are less than your UIM limits, and not enough to cover the losses of the people the underinsured driver injures in an at-fault accident.
UIM coverage does not provide protection against property damage. The UIM coverage will pay a maximum of the difference between the other driver's Liability limits and your UIM limits.
Optional Coverages
Additional PIP (No-Fault) Benefits
It is often smart to buy more No-Fault protection, over the basic $50,000 level of No-Fault benefits required by law. Because of No-Fault’s cost-effective design, extended No-Fault benefits represent a relatively inexpensive option.
For a modest additional premium, optional coverages are available that will pay more than the required basic No-Fault benefits, explained in Chapter II. Consumers now have two choices:
• You may purchase Additional PIP coverage, to raise the limit of No-Fault benefits available in case of an accident up to $100,000 or higher and, in the process, increase the potential maximum amounts of lost earnings payments, other necessary expenses or the death benefit, depending on the limit you select. Additional PIP also includes coverage for you and your family and, unlike basic No-Fault, extends to all out-of-state guest occupants in your car when driving anywhere in the United States, its territories and possessions, or Canada. For a minimal charge, you may also purchase additional personal injury protection solely to cover such guest occupants, without increasing the limit of No-Fault benefits.
• Insurers must offer Optional Basic Economic Loss (OBEL) coverage. If purchased, this coverage elevates the required $50,000 of basic economic loss coverage by an additional $25,000. When the basic limit of $50,000 has been reached on a claim, this $25,000 can be designated by the injured person to be applied specifically to payments for loss of earnings from work (wage loss), for rehabilitation, or to all elements of basic economic loss.
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