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Car Accidents

John Holmes

Recently, I was involved in a car accident that has me laid up for who knows how long (I'll let you know). What're you supposed to do when you lose your sole source of income and have left yourself no reserve? Cry! I will outline what all I have done and what I have found can be made available to you.

1. Be sure that you have P.I.P. on "YOUR" auto insurance policy. That extra savings of $1.42 a month could cost you an extra $2500.00 "IF/WHEN" you get hurt by another driver.
2. Consider having at least an accidental medical policy if not a major medical policy; and if you do carry health insurance, I suggest that you not skip the accidental injury rider. That can gain you another $5000.00 or more.
3. Have some "COLD HARD CASH" in the bank and/or liquid assets to convert to "QUICK CASH". This could be anything from bearer bond to pawnable items such as guns or gold/diamond jewelry.
4. Be prepared to wait a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG time for any settlement from the other person's insurance company.

The worst of it is that if you have none of the above, you will not only be out the potential income loss, you will also be out all of your own doctor's bills until "WAY" after the dust finally settles. Add to this any and all prescription costs for pain medications. That's if you don't have to go to the hospital for a while. If this happens, you are actually far better off, because the hospital will just bill the insurance company instead of you. This is an instance where "more is better", thank you anyway!

Then there is the possibility of what happened to us. They "TOTALED" our car. If you happen to have an older vehicle with substantial mileage, you will never be given enough to get a comparable replacement. We figure that we were given half what we needed. Although, we opted for the salvage buy-back and wound up with enough extra funds to not only fix it ourselves, but realized an extra $990.00 in ready cash after we were through.

There are many other options that have not been touched on here, and there are options that many of you know that I don't. Pass them on to me and they may well find their way into a future article.

John, The Balloon Man

e-mail: bloonman@balloonhq.com

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