Splendora
Auto Insurance

You Probably Rejected This Coverage in Writing and Do Not Remember

Personal injury protection is unusual among Texas coverages because of its default. Most optional coverages have to be asked for. PIP works the other way: a Texas insurer is required to offer it, and it goes onto the policy unless the applicant rejects it in writing. That means a great many drivers who believe they simply never bought it in fact signed it away, in a stack of paperwork, years ago. It is worth knowing what was declined. PIP pays medical expenses and a share of lost income for the driver and every passenger, regardless of who caused the crash and without waiting for fault to be determined, and it does that in a state where fault determines everything else. On this corridor that matters more than it does in a city. Texas is an at-fault state, so if a truck causes the collision, its insurer pays your medical bills — after liability is accepted, which on a commercial claim with a fleet insurer and a safety department behind it is measured in months rather than weeks. Meanwhile the ambulance, the emergency department and the first specialist all bill on the ordinary schedule. PIP is what covers that interval, it typically runs a few dollars a month at the common limits, and it works alongside health insurance rather than instead of it — it also reaches deductibles and copays that health coverage leaves with you, and passengers with no policy of their own are covered by yours. Adding it back takes a phone call, and it is the single cheapest useful thing on most policies written along this stretch of highway.