What is California PIP car insurance?

Answer 1

This is insurance you pay to the other driver and passengers if you were at-fault for an accident. You pay them back for injuries and deaths they may have suffered in the accident. This insurance also reimburses the other party for damage you caused to their car or other property.

Answer 2

One of the things that may be confusing for new drivers in California is all the different kinds of car insurance coverage available to drivers. While most Californians know that they must have car insurance to drive a car, certain new drivers may wonder what PIP insurance is.

The PIP in PIP insurance is an acronym that means personal injury protection. PIP insurance is a kind of coverage that is offered with most forms of auto insurance. Specifically, this form of insurance is used to protect people that are injured in car accidents.

Most usually, this coverage is used to pay for a person's medical expenses. For example, if the driver broke bones during a car crash, California PIP car insurance could be used to pay for the medical bills resulting from those broken bones.

The coverage does not always have to pay for medical expenses however. If a person could not work during his or her recovery from an injury sustained during a car crash, the PIP coverage could be used to compensate that person for lost wages.

In California, a certain amount of PIP coverage is required by law to exist within a car insurance policy. The minimum of this PIP coverage is $15,000 for injuries sustained by a single person. However, more than one person may be injured in a crash. If multiple people were injured, the minimum amount of coverage in that case must be at least $30,000.

However, many plans in California do offer more coverage than the state required minimums. For example, a plan may offer $30,000 of protection for each person injured in an accident. However, with higher amounts of coverage, a person can expect to pay higher rates to the insurance company.

For such insurance coverage to pay out, certain requirements must be met by the claimant. These can vary from company. One common example is a time window someone must file a claim within for the policy to pay out. If a person waits several weeks after an accident, it is likely that claim will be denied. This is why prompt action to contact the insurance company after an accident is required by a California driver.

There may also be other limits on a specific policy's PIP coverage. For example, certain kinds of injuries may not be covered. This is why it is very important to review the terms of a policy's PIP coverage beforehand.