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There are many sites on the internet that offer you car insurance. They all say the same thing: just click here and we will supply you with multiple quotes. But why should you carry insurance? More to the point, why do all the states in the union require you to have insurance in place before you put your car on the road?
The answer is a mixture of public policy and private selfishness which, for once, actually agree to produce the same result. To set the tone, in 2006, 5,973,000 traffic accidents were reported to the police in the USA, with 42,642 people killed and 2,575,000 injured. A total of 4,189,000 crashes involved property damage only. When you weigh up the social and economic costs of all these accidents, both direct and indirect, you are talking about a vast amount of money. States have to provide a basic system of safe roads, law enforcement and emergency response for the recovery of the injured and their treatment. Where necessary, a fire department must do its work to prevent further damage. People must pay for this through taxation and charges made when you use the services. If states require drivers to carry insurance, more of the cost of maintaining the emergency rooms and hospital facilities can be recovered, and general taxation can be kept lower.
For the private individual, it is all about protecting assets. If you injure someone or damage their property by the way you drive, there are big bills coming your way. The first obvious expense is the repair of your own car, or its replacement if it is not economic to repair it. Your bank or car loan company is not going to be happy if you did not have a comprehensive policy in place which covered both collision and property damage. Then look at those third party claims hitting you for personal injuries, loss of earnings, damage to property and consequential losses. If you are not insured and lose the case, the judgment is going to wipe out all your cash and may force the sale of your home and all other assets to pay off the debts.
So it all comes down to financial responsibility. The taxpayers want their states to recover the full costs when people use the accident and emergency services. Pedestrians and other innocent people who suffer loss should also be entitled to recover the money value of what they have lost. Forcing drivers to carry insurance gives property owners, cyclists and pedestrians an insurance company to sue. If this were not the case, you could only recover damages if you were lucky enough to be injured by someone who was rich enough to pay for that damage. As a citizen, if you have no assets, you can drive around with the car insurance set at the minimum figure and still be financially responsible. If you do have assets, you can pay a higher premium to protect what you have.
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