Will car insurance cover all of your costs from a crash?

When car accidents happen, insurance claims follow shortly thereafter. A successful insurance claim can pay to fix your car or buy a new one if your old one is no longer safe to drive. Insurance can also pay for medical care and other expenses if you suffer an injury in a crash.

Understanding New Mexico’s requirements for insurance and your own policy will help you determine if you will have any uncovered costs after a collision.

What will insurance potentially pay?

A significant percentage of drivers in New Mexico do not have car insurance, even though the law requires all drivers to have insurance. There are also plenty of other drivers who have only the basic minimum coverage required by law. In New Mexico, a driver must have a minimum of $10,000 of property damage liability coverage, although that minimum amount may be far less than it costs to replace a vehicle.

Requirements for bodily injury liability coverage are higher. In New Mexico, a driver must have a minimum of $25,000 of coverage for injury to one person, and $50,000 of coverage for injury to two or more persons.

Depending on what type of insurance policy a driver has purchased, the coverage could be significantly higher than the minimum required by law.

What if your costs are higher than the other driver’s insurance coverage?

You may have a number of options for getting the compensation you need after a car accident. Uninsured / underinsured motorist protection (UM coverage) is a type of insurance coverage that many people purchase just in case they have a collision with an uninsured or underinsured driver. However, many people are unaware that they actually have this coverage, and UM insurance claims can quickly become complicated.

If you have suffered an injury due to an uninsured driver’s negligence, you may want to talk to an attorney with experience in these matters. An attorney can review your insurance policy and help you explore your full range of options for getting the compensation you need for medical bills, lost income and other costs.