Deciding How Much, Honestly

Nobody can hand you the right number without knowing your situation, and anyone who does is guessing. What we can offer is the framework that produces a defensible answer.

Start with the exposure, not the price

The question underneath liability limits is: if I cause serious harm, how much of it could I cover personally before it reaches things I can't afford to lose? Your limits should be set with that number in view, then priced — not the other way round.

The minimum is a legal floor, not a recommendation

California's 30/60/15 is what the law requires to register and drive. It was never designed as a statement about adequacy, and a single serious accident can move past it without anything unusual happening.

Deductibles are a cash-flow question

A higher deductible lowers the premium. The discipline is simple: set it at what you could genuinely pay tomorrow without borrowing. Not what you could pay in a good month.

Physical damage follows the car

A financed or leased car usually requires collision and comprehensive as a loan condition. An older car you own outright is a judgment call about its value against the cost of the coverage plus your deductible.

The coverages people skip and regret

Uninsured motorist tops that list, given how often the other driver turns out to be uninsured or minimally insured. Rental reimbursement is second, for the mundane reason that repairs take longer than people expect.

Revisit it when life changes

A new car, a new driver, a new job, a house. Coverage set correctly five years ago may describe someone you no longer are.

Talk it through with a licensed agent — that conversation is the actual product.

Revisit it when the answer would change

Coverage set correctly once is coverage set correctly for the life you had then. The events that genuinely change the answer are predictable: buying a home, paying off a car, a new driver in the house, a real change in income or assets, retirement. Each of those changes either what you have to protect or what you could absorb yourself — the only two inputs that matter here. A ten-minute review at renewal, plus a call whenever one of those happens, keeps the policy describing the person who actually owns it.