If you’re planning on getting a car in Georgia, you’re probably wondering how much insurance you’re going to need. What are the minimum limits of car insurance in Georgia? We can answer that question, but we’re also going to talk about why you may want to get more than the legally required limit of car insurance.
What are the Georgia minimum limits of car insurance?
The magic numbers to remember for Georgia minimum levels of car insurance are 25/50/25.
The first number, 25, means that you need $25,000 of bodily liability insurance per person. If someone gets hurt in an accident and you’re at fault, you have legal obligations to that person (for example, this could be medical expenses.) The limit of coverage for each person in the other car is $25,000. Anything above that limit would come out of your own pocket.
The second number, 50, means that you must have $50,000 of bodily injury liability insurance per occurrence. That means that your car insurance would not pay out more than $50,000 per at-fault accident.
The third number, 25, means that you need $25,000 of property damage insurance. If you hit someone, the other driver’s car would be covered for repair or replacement up to $25,000.
So, that answers the question of the Georgia minimum limits of car insurance: you need $25,000 of bodily injury insurance per person, $50,000 of bodily injury liability per occurrence, and $25,000 of property damage liability insurance.
However, you may want to think about getting more than the Georgia minimum limits of car insurance (which only covers liability insurance.) We’ll explain why.
Why you might want more than the state minimum levels of car insurance.
Having higher limits of car insurance can protect you financially. We don’t like to think about it, but driving is dangerous. The expenses that could arise from a serious accident could be astronomical.
If you’re involved in a severe accident, those minimum levels might not be enough to fully cover your legal responsibility to the other driver (for example, medical bills.) You’d be left to cover the rest of the costs that you owe to the driver that you’ve injured or whose car you’ve damaged, and those could be some very big bills.
What are collision and comprehensive insurance?
The state minimum levels of car insurance only require liability insurance. That means that other driver’s medical bills, their car repairs or replacement, and even your legal expenses could be covered in case of an accident.
But what about your car?
Liability insurance will not cover your car if it’s damaged. So, whether you’re in an accident or something else happens to the vehicle – a tree falls on it, it gets stolen, you hit a deer – you would be on your own to cover the costs of repairing or replacing your car.
To protect yourself financially and protect your investment in your car, you would need to purchase collision and comprehensive coverage.
- Collision coverage helps pay to repair or replace your car if you’re in an accident.
- Comprehensive coverage helps repair or replace your car if something other than an accident damages it. So, if your car gets squashed by a tree, gets vandalized, gets stolen, catches fire, or hits an animal, you could be covered.
To conclude:
If you’re driving with the Georgia minimum limits of car insurance, you may not be fully protected financially if you get into a serious accident or if you get sued. Your car is also not protected if you forego collision and comprehensive insurance and only get liability insurance. So, we encourage you to think about getting higher limits of car insurance. Get some quotes. You might find that there actually isn’t too much difference in premium between the minimum limits and adding tens of thousands of dollars of car insurance to your policy.
And we can help you figure that out. We would be happy to help you get a quote for Atlanta car insurance – and help you save money on your car insurance. Get in touch with us and get started with Georgia car insurance quotes by filling out our online form or give us a call today.