Illinois car insurance requirements change depending on what coverages you initially purchase.

The state where liability coverage is required, but the coverage to protect you is only half required.

Not only do you need liability coverage for other people you may hit, but Illinois car insurance laws also require that you carry insurance coverage to protect yourself. However, all of their insurance requirements are not as simple as they are in other states.

Illinois Car Insurance Liability Minimums

The minimum liability insurance allowed in Illinois is $20,000 for one person and $40,000 for multiple people. For any damage that you do to the property of others, $15,000 is required in coverage.

Illinois Car Insurance UM/UIM Minimums

Bodily injury liability coverage and property damage liability coverage make up only half of what is required to drive legally in Illinois. The other half of the requirements are Uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist coverage.

Uninsured motorist (UM) is used when another driver with no insurance hits you and you are injured. You can carry no less than $20,000 per person and $40,000 for the total accident with UM coverage. In order to be able to use this coverage the other driver has to be at fault for the accident or the accident has to be from a hit-and-run driver.

Underinsurance motorist coverage (UIM) is only required if you purchase more than the minimum limits required for UM.

UIM is for when you have more medical bills than the driver that was responsible for the accident has in liability coverage. For example, if your medical bills were $60,000 and the other person only had $40,000 in bodily injury liability coverage; the UIM could be used to help pay for the remaining $20,000 still left over.

Mandatory Illinois Insurance Coverage (For Insurance Companies)

Yes, even the insurance companies are required to have mandatory insurance by the state; but not in the way you think. This mandatory insurance is in the form of being forced to provide insurance coverage to drivers in the state that can’t get insurance anywhere else.

These are the drivers that have had accident after accident that they were at fault for. They are also the drivers that have had so many traffic violations that only the state and the insurance companies have been able to keep track of the count. In other words, these are the bad drivers that insurance companies don’t want to have to provide insurance for.

Because insurance is mandatory in Illinois, if you have become this type of driver you are only going to be able to find insurance coverage through the Illinois Automobile Insurance Plan. However, there are requirements to get into this program as well:

• The vehicle you drive has to be mechanically and legally safe to drive.

• You have to have a valid driver’s license or can apply for one (your license can’t be suspended).

• You cannot owe any insurance companies money for insurance you had in the last 36 months.

• You have to have been turned down by other insurance companies when you applied for car insurance with them.

If you are able to get insurance through the Illinois Automobile Insurance Plan, expect to pay a very high premium for insurance. If you don’t meet the requirements of this plan and can’t get Illinois car insurance anywhere else, you need to stop driving!

Keeping your Vermont car insurance active will save you more money than getting caught without it.

The Green Mountain state will make sure you get penalized plenty of green if you let your insurance lapse.

Car insurance requirements in the state of Vermont concentrate on making sure that there is more coverage for injuries you may cause than property damage. As with all minimum insurance requirements, you have to ask yourself if it is enough coverage to protect you financially; in case you do cause an accident. If you feel that the minimums that are required for Vermont car insurance aren’t enough, you can always purchase more.

No matter what you do though, just make sure that you purchase at least what is required for the minimum Vermont car insurance.

Minimum Vermont Car Insurance Requirements

Vermont car insurance minimum requirements include $10,000 in coverage for property damage, $25,000 in bodily injury liability coverage for a single person and $50,000 in bodily injury liability coverage for the entire accident.

Confused? Let me elaborate on what each of the coverages are.

Property damage coverage is to cover the damage you do with your vehicle, to property that you do not own. It can be another person’s vehicle, a house or even a traffic sign. If you damage it and do not own it, your property damage liability coverage will pay for it; up to the amount of coverage that you have.

Bodily injury liability coverage pays for the medical expenses (and more) of any person that you injure or kill with your vehicle. It is broken down into two different coverage limits. First, is the smaller limit of what the insurance company will pay per person that is injured. In Vermont, the minimum coverage allowed is the $25,000.

Second, is the larger limit of what an insurance company will pay for the total of all injuries in a car accident. For Vermont car insurance, you are allowed to carry no less than $50,000 in this coverage. This means if you injure multiple people and their expenses exceed $50,000 for all of them, you are responsible for paying the amount left over beyond the $50,000.

Refusing the Carry Vermont Car Insurance

If you refuse to obey the law and don’t carry Vermont car insurance on your vehicle, you will face legal penalties. To start you will receive a fine that will be no less than $250, but no more than $500.

You will also receive points on your driving record and have to file for SR-22 insurance for the next three years. These last two are going to make the amount you have to pay for insurance much higher than what you were paying before.

Now, if you still can’t get your head around the fact that you have to keep insurance on your car to drive and you let your newly required SR-22 insurance lapse; your driver’s license will be suspended

May I offer a word of advice? Just keep your Vermont car insurance active; it will be a lot cheaper and less trouble for you in the long run.

South Dakota car insurance is not the only way you can show proof of financial responsibility.

South Dakota requires proof that you can pay for damages you cause in a car accident; it just doesn’t have to be in the form of car insurance.

South Dakota requires that their drivers and vehicle owners provide proof of financial responsibility, in one of the methods approved by the state, in order to drive. Driving without it will cost you not only points on your driving record, but also your criminal record as well.

If you don’t want to purchase the minimum amount of insurance that South Dakota law requires for proof of financial responsibility, they do provide you with several other options.

South Dakota Car Insurance Requirements

Insurance requirements in the state of South Dakota run about average compared to what other states require. They aren’t the lowest, but they are definitely not the highest.

Are they adequate though? That is something that you really need to talk through with your insurance agent. Don’t expect them not to try and upsell you into more insurance coverage, but they can still tell you the pros and cons of this level of coverage.

South Dakota car insurance requirements include having to carry bodily injury liability coverage as well as property damage liability coverage. Bodily injury has to be no less than $25,000 in coverage for a single person (not in your vehicle) that you injure. It also has to include coverage of no less than $50,000 for the medical expenses from injuries that you cause to two or more people (not in your vehicle).

Property damage liability has to be $25,000 or more in coverage in order to be legal in South Dakota. This coverage is for any property that is not yours that you damage with your vehicle.

No South Dakota Car Insurance = Misdemeanor

In most states you will find you driver’s license or car registration suspended if you are caught without insurance. South Dakota on the other hand, will charge you with a misdemeanor.

Now, you don’t have to actually carry South Dakota car insurance to be able to legally drive in the state. They do offer a number of alternatives for you to provide proof that you have some sort of financial responsibility set up in the event that you do cause an accident.

If you fail to provide any of the proof of financial responsibilities that they accept a Class 2 misdemeanor will be added to your record.

The South Dakota Car Insurance Alternatives

As mentioned before, South Dakota car insurance is just one of the several ways that you can have proof of financial responsibility to legally drive. All of the alternatives, including the proof of South Dakota car insurance, are just basically providing proof that you can pay for the expenses that come from an accident that you cause.

South Dakota approves the following alternatives to having South Dakota car insurance:

• A surety bond

• A cash deposit of $25,000 with the state treasurer or $30,000 in securities.

• A certificate of self-insurance for those that own 25 or more vehicles and can prove that they have the capability to pay for damages they are responsible for.

For more information about how you can obtain one of these alternative proofs of financial responsibility contact the Department of Public Safety in South Dakota.

Nevada car insurance laws may be low in what they require, but they are very unforgiving.

Finding yourself penalized for not having Nevada car insurance wil be easier than you think.

Yikes! Nevada is another state that you really need to consider carrying more than what they require you to carry. In no way should you think that the amount that you are required to carry in Nevada is enough to completely protect you from the financial devastation of a serious car accident.

However, if the minimums are all that you can afford, that is much better than no coverage at all. Not to mention the fines you will have to pay for not having it.

Minimum Nevada Car Insurance Allowed

The state minimum requirements for Nevada car insurance should really be taken as a suggestion of what you have to carry. The state minimum requirements are barely enough to cover a minor accident, especially the property damage requirement. You really need to ask yourself what would happen to you financially if you caused a serious accident. Could you afford to pay for the expenses that went above and beyond the low liability limits you chose to carry if you went with the minimums?

Now that we have talked about how the minimum Nevada car insurance requirements are not enough to protect you, let’s find out exactly how low they are.

Starting with the property damage liability coverage, you only have to carry $10,000 in coverage to meet the minimum Nevada car insurance requirements. This coverage is for the damages you cause when you hit property that you do not own. Nevada car insurance also requires that you carry no less than $15,000 in coverage for bodily injury that you may cause to another person that is not in your vehicle. For multiple injuries, you only have to carry $30,000 in this bodily injury liability coverage.

Penalties for Lapsed Nevada Car Insurance

Just like the casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada has no forgiveness if you don’t play by the rules. They have no grace period or warnings if you let your Nevada car insurance lapse. You let it lapse just a single day and you will be seeing fines.

It used to be that it was a $250 reinstatement fee if you let your insurance lapse at any time. After new laws that were passed in 2011, Nevada now has a much more complicated tier of how much you will be paying if you let your insurance go. These fines are based on how long you let your insurance lapse and how many times you have let it lapse.

 Because there is no way I would be able to do justice to this tier system, the above chart is compliments of the Nevada DMV for Nevada car insurance penalties.

The collision coverage on your insurance policy works no matter if you are at fault for an accident or not.

Causing an accident is not something we set out to do as part of our day. This is why we purchase collision and comprehensive coverage just in case we do.

These coverages make sure that the damages to our vehicles from an accident will be covered by our insurance policy (after deductible). Whether or not they pay for the damage is not dependent as to who was at fault for the accident.