Insurance can be confusing and downright frustrating. It doesn’t help when vague and misleading terms get thrown around by non-insurance nerds to describe policies. This seems to be especially rampant with automobile insurance coverages.

In Florida a very popular, but misleading term is “No Fault”. If you get into a car accident, trust me there is plenty of fault to go around, just like if you get into a disagreement with your spouse. You really think “hey baby, this is a no fault situation” is going to fly? If something is going bad its usually my fault, just ask my wife.

Well “no fault” is really short hand to reference a minimum legal amount of 1st party bodily injury insurance coverage that is required to obtain a license in Florida and it is formally known as Personal Injury Protection or PIP. 1st party insurance covers the buyer (your insurance company pays for your own hospitalization), 3rd party coverages cover someone else’s injuries or property you might have caused harm to which you are legally liable. 3rd Party insurance is usually called “liability coverage”.

PIP was originally conceived to reduce law suits and fraud because if you were injured you would only be collecting from your own policy and insurance carrier for your bodily injury claim under $10K and thus not have to sue the the other driver and their insurance carrier. The jury is still out on whether this strategy actually reduces fraudulent claims, and there are many in favor of getting rid of PIP, but I digress.

If you are in an accident follow the necessary procedures, call the police, get yourself medical attention and if the injuries require treatment you may be using your own “Personal Injury Protection” coverages to pay for some or all of your treatment regardless of who actually caused the accident. PIP is the bare minimum in coverage and should not be relied on to make you and your family whole for your hospitalization costs, lost income, medication, medical bills, and surgeries in a major accident.

Call or message Wayne Anthony Insurance today about your options. You might be surprised how inexpensive it is to truly protect your family (and by the way “full coverage” and “insurance fairy dust” are also not real insurance or legal terms in case you were wondering).