Car Insurance advice for the USA

[madwife2002]

We emigrated to the USA on the 1st December 2005, and we bought our first car on the 18th December 2005. On the 8th February 2006 we had a massive car accident and fortunatly for us we lived but I have injuries which will take a fair amount of time to heal, and will cost many thousands of dollars in medical expences. Also fortunatly for us we were hit by an insured driver and a company lorry so their insurance is good. So now I want to share with the UK nurses who are on their way over here and the ones who are already here and may be oblivious, of what kind of insurance it is vital to have.

Car insurance is very expensive here but it is important that you pay for the best in this country or else you could be in deep trouble. Fully comprehensive insurance is not the same as it is back in UK.

You will not be covered by your company's medical insurance ( by this I mean the company who employs you) for any medical occurance as a result of a road traffic accident-not even the ambulance which recovers you from the scene of the accident which cost us $700 for one person. So you need to ensure you are medically covered in your own auto insurance just in case your are hit by either an unisured driver or a underinsured driver.

Expect a fully comprehensive policy to cost up to $1000 per six months anything less than $800 is not worth the paper it is written on. We paid $115 per month and it covered NOTHING, only $15,000 per person which doesnt even cover medical expences. No car hire, no road side recovery no medical expences!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So if it had been our fault then we would have been in a dire situation.

If you are over here check now your policy, if you are coming over here then PM me with details of what you have been offered by your insurance company and I will advice you. I can tell you everything you need to have included in your policy.

Nobody here in USA will advice you because they do not know how things work in the UK with car insurance. Remember all health care is free in UK so you dont need to worry about that in UK. I believe the ambulance will charge for RTA's at home but you are talking around 25 pounds.

Please please take this post seriously because I feel we knew nothing about car insurance when we came here, the insurance looked ok to our uneducated mind and had we not had an accident we would not have know how much danger we were in.

[cariad]

your medical insurance will come with your job and you will get discounted rates for the family.

thanks to the advice from madwife we took extra insurance when we insured our suv, and then had an accident in which dh and i have both needed medical treatment, the insurance doesnt cover all the costs and we did elect to have medical insurance with the car, so hopefully eventually that will pay for the bills that the medical insurance dont pay.

i had to have surgery and was told the day before that the hospital wanted $1,000 upfront, the insurance has a $300 co-pay and apparently only pay for 30% of the op, so we will still end up having to pay something.

you can never have too much car insurance, even the one that we are with we have now been advised that its not one of the best.

[suzanne7575]

for those going with agencies wouold you recommend looking for alternative medical insurance other than what the agency provides. I have been considering an agency and have asked for details of their policy I'm not impressed. The basic one which is free to the member sounds like Cariads with a 30% co insurance and quite a high max out of pocket, they do a higher level one which is a lot better and is only $60 extra per month, but to add the family it is extortionate at around $650 a month. However there is an insurance company based in AZ, which is underwritten by lloyds of london which offers medical insurance especially for immigrants who do not qualify for US based ones. It has a $1000 deductible and 20% co-pay up to a max $5000, but if you use one of the facilities within the PPO you have no co-pay and there are loads of hospitals and practitioners included, i checked. The cost for my husband and kids would be approx $300 per month and it seems far better cover then the agency one and covers medical, life and dental costs?

Of course this is all irrelavent if i go for direct hire as the cover provided by hospitals looks excellent

[cariad]

each hospital has different benefits, with different costs, even although my insurance company has paid out lots of money for our treatment since the accident, they are now issuing us with forms to fill in for them to get their money back that they have paid out from the car insurance companys. so it seems that they take your money but are up to every trick in the book to avoid costing them money.

cant advise you on the insurance companies, will only say that when you are having to pay out co-pays is usually when you are ill and unable to work and earn money and its a lot to be paying out.