Your New Bentley just got totaled

So, there is a certain celebrity family that makes a lot of money doing not too much other than looking pretty.  And they do that very well. They are a wonderful example of how car insurance works in extreme situations.
Let’s say that we just bought ourselves a really nice Bentley Continental GT. It’s about a 250,000 dollar car. Not much more than what I paid for my house, man I got born into the wrong family. I’m just a few plastic surgeries from being decent looking, maybe there is still hope! So, now I am rolling around town in my new wheels for about a week and then out of nowhere a guy blows a red light in his terrible used Prius and t-bones the car (meaning: hit the car on the side with his front making a T). The brand new Bentley Continental in Nubium Silver is a total loss with less than 200 miles on the odometer. Fortunately, the car absorbed the impact and everyone walked away from the accident.
Now, what happens with insurance? Well, this driver of the Prius was carrying the state minimum coverage. He had 15/30 for bodily injury which would cover if he injured someone up to 15 thousand a person, maximum paid for all injuries would be 30 thousand. And the kicker on this is that he had 5 thousand in coverage for property damage! So, his insurance company paid 5,000 towards replacing a 250,000 dollar car. Uhm, can anyone do the math on this? Yes, we are short about 245,000 dollars, ouch!
Now what? Here’s how it played out. The celebrity person’s insurance company paid out for the balance of the car. The fancy person went back to get themselves a new car and went on posing for pictures. The insurance company went on to sell the totaled vehicle for about a 150 thousand dollars at auction recouping some of the money. But, they were still short about 95,000. Guess who is on the hook for that? Mr. Prius is on the hook. So, for the rest of his life he is going to be making monthly payments to the insurance company paying off his balance.
This is an extreme case, but things like this happen. My advice is increase your liability people. Even if you don’t have a lot of assets the price difference between the minimum required by the state and middle of the road liability is probably only a few hundred dollars a year. There are places to be cheap, insurance liability isn’t one of them.
Give me a call to get a quote at 951-395-0754 or visit my website www.socalinsured.com