One of the most important, but often the most confusing aspect of being involved in a car accident is your own insurance policy. And it’s real important that you understand exactly what that policy means.

There are really two types of items on your insurance policy. First is the coverage, and the second is the tort option. First I’ll talk about coverage.

There are really two types of coverages. One for you and one for the other guy. The other guy being, the person that someone driving your car would cause an accident, has two types of coverages; liability and property damage. They’re both required by law in Pennsylvania.

Liability coverage which covers somebody else’s pain and suffering is written in two set parts. The first part is how much an individual can collect in an accident, and the second part is how much everybody can collect. The minimum coverage in Pennsylvania is 15,000 per person, 30,000 per accident. It then jumps to 25,000/50,000, 50,000/100,000, 100,000/300,000 and you can buy coverages as well as excess coverages above that.

Property damage the minimum you’re required to have is $5,000, however with the costs of cars these days it’s very simp- -- it’s very easy to cause more than $5,000 to somebody else’s vehicle so you can also have 25,000, 50,000 or even $100,000 in property damage coverage.

The other coverages are for yourself. The only one required in Pennsylvania is medical coverage, often called PIP coverage which stands for personal injury protection. The minimum amount you have to have in Pennsylvania is $5,000. Medical coverage is paid according to a medicare guideline which pays about 60 cents on the dollar. So your $5,000 in basic medical coverage will cover about $8,000 of medical bills.

Also your medical coverage on your car accident is primary. What that means is that when you’re in a car accident even if you have health insurance your car insurance pays until it is exhausted and then your health coverage kicks in.

The other types of coverage available are uninsured motorist coverage and underinsured motorist coverage. Uninsured is similar to liability and written in two parts, a part per person, a part per accident, and that will pay you or any occupants of your car if they’re injured and that injury is caused by either an unknown driver, because you’re involved in a hit and run, or another driver who doesn’t have car insurance.

You can similarly have underinsured motorist coverage which means if the other driver is at fault, they are insured but they cause you or any of your passengers significant injuries and they don’t have enough insurance to cover those injuries your own policy will make up the difference.

There are other, there’s also some minor coverages that you can purchase such as funeral expenses, towing and loss of income.

The second part and the most important thing and the part that is least understood is the tort option. After you buy all your coverages you can pay the full amount and retain what’s called your full rights to bring a claim when you have an accident, that’s called the full tort option. Or you can save anywhere from one third to almost 50 percent on your cost of your policy by taking something called the limited tort option. The limited tort as it’s properly named limits your right to bring a claim against another Pennsylvania driver unless your injuries involve death, disfigurement or a serious impairment of a bodily function. Thank you.