What To Look For In A Full Coverage Car Insurance Quote In Iowa

Not every driver in Iowa is required to buy car insurance. If you have a perfect driving record and if you have sufficient resources available to pay for any accident you may have, then you are not forced to buy car insurance.

However, most drivers in Iowa don’t qualify to drive without car insurance and so it is important to know what to look for in a full coverage car insurance quote here in Iowa.

Full coverage insurance is actually made up of (basically) four or sometimes five different types of car insurance.

The most basic type of car insurance is liability insurance. This is the insurance that pays for medical treatment (known as bodily injury) to anyone in an accident and liability also pays for the repair or replacement of the other person’s vehicle if you are at fault in an accident.

Here in Iowa the minimum liability insurance you need is what is known as 20/40/15. This insurance pays up to $20,000 in medical payments (bodily injury) for any one person in an accident with a maximum payout of $40,000 in medical coverage for any one accident. In addition this policy will pay $15,000 toward property damage – which includes repair or replacement of the other party’s vehicle. It is possible to only buy liability insurance.

However, if you are looking at full coverage car insurance you will also need to purchase comprehensive as well as collision coverage. Additionally you could purchase uninsured motorist (UM) coverage and medical payments coverage.

It is possible to purchase comprehensive coverage and not purchase collision coverage, but you cannot purchase collision coverage unless you also purchase comprehensive coverage.

Collision coverage, as the name implies, covers repairs or replacement of your vehicle in the event of an accident. If your vehicle is being financed then your lender will require that you carry collision coverage on your vehicle.

Comprehensive coverage covers your vehicle for damages sustained by anything which is not a collision. Comprehensive covers such things as theft, damage that occurs as a result of weather such as hail and floods, as well as vandalism. Comprehensive also includes damage caused if you hit an animal, such as a deer.

Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage pays for bodily injury to you or anyone in your vehicle as well as repairs to your vehicle in the event that you are involved in an accident with a motorist who is not insured and the uninsured driver is at fault.

Medical payments coverage pays for your medical bills and for the medical bills of others who are injured in your vehicle at the time of an accident. Medical payments coverage only covers a four wheeled vehicle (not a motorcycle) and there are other limitations as to coverage, so make certain you understand all limitations and how they apply to you before purchasing this insurance.

If your vehicle is being financed your lender may require you to purchase more than the state minimum amounts of insurance and you also may be limited on the amount of your deductible.

If your vehicle is not financed then you may be able to keep your insurance costs down by buying limited amounts of liability insurance, and limiting or even eliminating your comprehensive, collision, and medical payments coverage. You can also lower your cost of coverage by increasing your deductible to the highest amount that makes sense in your financial situation.

Once you have determined what types and amounts of insurance coverage you need, your best bet for finding the lowest price for your insurance coverage is to get online and begin comparing prices between as many different insurance companies in Iowa as possible.

Be sure that you don’t stop after making comparisons on just one website. If you genuinely want to find the best rate possible for the coverage you need, you will have to take the time to make comparisons on at least 3 different comparison website. Once you have done this then you can look at the best price you have been able to find and feel confident that it is the very best price you are going to find for full coverage car insurance in the state of Iowa.