It should be noted that in the United States, all types of property insurance are legally voluntary. However, the current practice of a number of reasons why insurance of certain types of risks is a public necessity, often leads to the fact that the conclusion of insurance contracts becomes a necessity. Consider the main types of property insurance. Car insurance is a compulsory type of insurance in the vast majority of US states. An uninsured car will simply not be registered in them. The very concept of “compulsory insurance” was born in America at the dawn of the twentieth century and has improved over the years. Today, car insurance is governed by the laws of each state separately. Only in New Hampshire, Tennessee and Wisconsin is it optional. Differences in the laws of other states are reduced mainly to the types of compulsory insurance adopted there, as well as to the minimum amount of insurance coverage.
Any insurance benefit (and it is better not to go outside if you do not know the basics of such instructions) begins in much the same way: understanding car insurance is an important part of your training as a driver.
In the vast majority of states, it is impossible to buy a car without car insurance – you just will not sell it. If you do not worry about this in advance and come to buy a car, you will be offered an agreement and get an insurance policy from the nearest insurance company. Car insurance in the USA includes 6 basic types.
The first two types are the most important, and therefore mandatory for everyone almost everywhere in America. This is liability insurance for the infliction of bodily harm by the owner of the policy to another person or persons and material damage to property as a result of an accident. Each state determines the minimum insurance coverage for an accident. In the United States, three numbers are used for this, which show these limits in tens of thousands of dollars.
So, in California, the following parameters are adopted: 15/30/5. This means that the car owner must have a policy with minimum liability insurance in case of personal injury and property damage at the rate of $ 15,000 if one person is injured, $ 30,000 if more than one person is injured and $ 5,000 to cover property damage.
The third type of insurance is personal injury protection. It covers medical expenses and financial losses as a result of temporary disability of the policyholder himself and the passengers who were in his car at the time of the accident, regardless of who is the culprit. Such a policy is important if the person involved in the accident has little or no health insurance coverage. If health insurance is expensive and provides high coverage, then the third type of auto insurance can be abandoned or taken at a minimum. In a number of states, including New Jersey, California and the capital – Washington, it is not required.
The following two types of insurance are also optional in the American zones. The first of them is collision insurance, when material damage caused to the car of the owner of the policy through his fault as a result of a collision with another car or a stationary object – a post, a hydrant, a tree, etc. is covered. The second is “comprehensive insurance”, which covers damage caused by floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, as well as in cases of vandalism and car theft, that is, when it is impossible to find the culprit. These two types of insurance cover the cost of repairs at fair market prices, less the amount that the policyholder must pay in accordance with the contract with the insurance company. While collision and disaster insurance is not required by state law, these types of policies work most often.
Choosing the best insurance policy for a vehicle driver in the United States is a tricky business. There are many insurance companies in America that offer a wide variety of different insurance schemes. At the same time, they take into account the age of the motorist, the area of the city where the car is kept at night, the approximate daily mileage, the main purpose of using the car (business or entertainment), how many violations of the traffic rules have been during five years, the make of the car and the year of manufacture, and much more. All of this data is used to calculate the optimal amount of insurance coverage and the corresponding daily premium. The maximum contributions are paid by foreigners who do not have a history of driving a car in the United States. Only after 2-3 years, when such a story appears, for them contributions can be reduced. Therefore, the insurance premium for a foreigner immediately after his arrival in New York can be set in the amount of up to 7 thousand dollars per year. With the receipt of an American driver’s license, this amount can be lowered by 2 thousand dollars, and after several years of driving in New York, a foreigner can achieve a reduction in the insurance premium by another couple of thousand dollars. And all this on condition of trouble-free driving and no problems with the police.
Property insurance also includes real estate insurance (home insurance). It provides insurance coverage for damage to real estate for any reason and under any circumstances. This type of insurance is often also applied to household items, household appliances, other movable property located in the insured object.
