As many of you know, today I serve as a minister at the Antioch Church of Christ in Nashville.  However, I have an unusual ministry.  I spend my full time traveling around the country presenting the No Debt No sweat! Christian Money Management Seminar at churches and colleges. 

But it hasn’t always been this way.  For over twenty years I owned a business that was located on Nashville’s famous Music Row. What a place to work!  It’s a great area of town.  Everywhere you go there are creative people working with the various record labels and creative shops.  I love most every thing about the Row, except the driving.  Since this is where the country music stars work—it’s also where the tourists come.  They’re everywhere.  (Some of the locals call Music Row the Plaid Shorts District.)  As much as we appreciate the tourist business in Nashville, driving can be a real problem.  Especially when you throw in the homegrown folks who make their share of driving gaffes, too.  Over the years, I have had a couple of fender-benders in the area when someone wasn’t paying enough attention.  Through these regrettable experiences, I’ve grown to appreciate the value of good car insurance. 

One thing I have learned is the essential nature of car insurance coverage.  I’ve learned the hard way that, even if I do everything right, I can still be faced with thousands of dollars of repair bills.  And, if I ever should make a major mistake on the road, my insurance may be the only thing standing between us and bankruptcy!  So with this as my introduction to the subject, let’s talk about what car insurance covers and a little about how it works.

Six Basic Parts of an Auto Policy

A typical car insurance policy may include all, or some, of the following six types of coverage.  Usually, each coverage is priced individually.  They include:

1) Bodily Injury Liability.  This is designed to help protect the policyholder from claims and defense costs if he kills or injures someone.

2) Property Damage Liability.  This helps cover damage the policyholder may do to someone else’s property.  However, this coverage does not cover the policyholder’s own property or car.

3) Medical Payments or Personal Injury Protection.  Pays on the medical expenses for injuries to the driver and passengers of the insured’s car.  It may also pay if the insured is injured while riding in someone else’s car or while walking.

4) Collision.  Designed to cover costs for damage to the policyholder’s car if it is in a collision with another vehicle or some other object.