Car insurance, Kansas law, and why you’re not getting what you’re paying for | Commentary

Car insurance is one of those monthly bills that can feel like a nuisance, but paying it is not an option.

Driving without insurance will prevent you from registering your vehicle, which will prevent you from maintaining a valid tag, which will lead to an unwanted traffic stop sooner than later.

It will even lead to a separate citation when you do get pulled over for an invalid tag, and those tickets are not cheap.

The costs of insurance can be so prohibitive that some drivers refuse to pay them, even knowing what the consequences will be.

At some point, they spin the wheel to decide whether to go without food, a cell phone or car insurance, and insurance is the first to go. This doesn’t necessarily mean they will be more careful when they jump behind the wheel.

Some consumers of car insurance have come to realize that insurance is critical to protect themselves – not just to protect others. What some people refer to as “full” liability coverage is really “collision” or “comprehensive” coverage, which will pay for most of the damage to your own vehicle, even when you’re the one at fault.

This is what most people think of when it comes to protecting themselves, because most people don’t think they’ll ever be injured in a wreck. But it happens.

There’s another category of coverage in every single Kansas auto insurance policy that most people don’t know or think about: UM and UIM. Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is attached to every policy and will pay for your medical bills and other losses when you are injured by an uninsured, at fault driver. Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage pays the same losses when the at fault driver has some insurance, but not enough to pay your full claim.

Every insured Kansas driver is required to purchase UM and UIM coverage automatically, even when they buy the most basic coverage. And every insured Kansas driver has been getting ripped off for years, every time they pay their premium.

There’s a little-known law on the books: K.S.A. 40-284(b).

This outdated law says that any policy limit of UIM coverage is automatically reduced by the amount of coverage held by the at fault — but underinsured — driver.

So, when you write a check for your premium and the declarations page says the UIM coverage limit you’re paying for is $50,000, you actually have no idea how much you’ll get.

The declarations pages don’t change, and the premiums don’t either.

The only thing that changes — like a spin of the wheel — is not knowing how much coverage the driver who plowed into you bothered to buy.

For years, efforts have been made to get our Legislature to fix the law. Nothing happens.

The request to our lawmakers is really quite simple: Let Kansans get what they pay for. For some reason, the auto insurers never seem to want to cooperate. They like things just the way they are.

Next time you run into your insurance broker, ask him how much money you’ll actually be able to get from a wreck if you buy $50,000 in UIM coverage.

I’ll bet you’ll hear the following answer: “It depends.”

The answer is to fix this ridiculous law. Maybe this will be the year.