Texas auto insurance law offers drivers the opportunity to purchase protection against uninsured motorists with uninsured motorist property damage coverage. You automatically have uninsured motorist coverage for your bodily injuries with Texas auto insurance law, but not coverage for damage to your vehicle. Here are a few things that you should know about Texas auto insurance and uninsured motorist property damage coverage.

(1) Understand that according to Texas auto insurance law you will still have to pay a deductible with uninsured motorist property damage coverage, but this will lower your current collision deductible to $250. In other words, you pay the first $250 for your repairs and the auto insurance company pays for the rest.

(2) Texas auto insurance law requires that you make impact with the uninsured vehicle to qualify for uninsured motorist property damage, or UMPD, coverage. So if you are forced from the road by another vehicle, but never make impact with them, accord to Texas auto insurance law you do not qualify for UMPD.

(3) It is imperative that you understand that most Texas auto insurance policies do not automatically include UMPD. You must inform your agent that you want the coverage and your agent will make it an “endorsement” to your coverage.

(4) Lastly, Texas auto insurance laws require that you have a police report or Texas “Blue Form”, or accident report, to qualify for UMPD.

Texas auto insurance is based on the negligence law of the modified comparative, “not greater than”. What this means is that if you are found to be 50% or more negligent in an accident then you will be coded as negligent in an accident and your auto insurance rates will likely go up. Texas auto insurance laws make it possible for an accident to have more than one party be negligent for an accident, so, what does this mean?

First, this means that if an accident is 50% the responsibility of both parties, Texas auto insurance laws do not require one auto insurance company to pay for the repairs to the other’s vehicle. Basically a 50-50 accident with Texas auto insurance means that both parties are going to take care of repairs to their own vehicles.

If an accident is 60-40 then the party that is 60% responsible is negligent and that driver’s auto insurance pays for 60% of the repairs to the other party’s vehicle, according to Texas auto insurance law. The party that is 40% responsible is considered to have no fault in the accident and has to pay for none of the repairs to the other party’s vehicle.

Texas auto insurance laws make it so that the auto insurance companies are the ones that get to make the determination of who was at fault, taking that responsibility from the busy lives of law enforcement officers.

Texas auto insurance liability limits are set, like any other state, to insure that regardless of who you may get in an accident with, they have the coverage to pay for your damages if they are negligent. Those who don’t adhere to the Texas auto insurance liability laws are subject to legal action, including being sued for damages. Below is the Texas auto insurance liability limits with a brief summary of what each means.

All liability limits with Texas auto insurance or any other auto insurance are listed in BIPD format, separated with slashes, like 20/40/15. Texas auto insurance does demand minimum liability limits of 20/40/15, meaning:

Bodily Injury limits of $20,000 and $40,000 refer to how much you could expect from your auto insurance company to pay for another vehicle’s damage that you caused. If you caused an accident your auto insurance company would pay for up to $20,000 for injuries to one person in another vehicle, up to $40,000 for all passengers in that vehicle.

Property Damage liability limit of $15,000 means that your auto insurance company would pay for up to $15,000 in damages to the vehicles you damaged in an auto accident.

Texas auto insurance law demands that you hold at least these limits for your vehicle, but for the price it is worth it to go a little higher. Vehicles and medical bills are more than ever these days and you don’t want to be in a bind.