In the fourth grade, I had a teacher that forced us to learn all of our prepositions. She was awesome and I can still remember the whole jingle that was barged into my little 9 year old brain-Abort, about, above, across, after against, etc.- It wasn’t until middle school that I learned that other trick that if a squirrel can do that action on a log, it’s probably a preposition. All this to say a few years ago while I was taking the insurance licensing exam, there was one coverage that reminded me of those silly prepositions.
Almost everyone has med pay coverage. You have it on your personal auto. You have it on your homeowners. If you have general liability, you have it on there. It’s just one of those give me coverages. To be fair, it does sound pretty self-explanatory, because in reality it is about paying medical payments, but there’s so much more. I think the main reason this coverage sparks the preposition song in my head is how it can be used- In personal auto, medical payments can be applied to anyone that is on, in, above, etc your car. The same goes with your homeowners. A squirrel can go on your lawn, so can a young child. They can also take one wrong step, twist their ankle and off to the hospital they go- but hey, that’s the point in insurance. Med pay is one of those fun things that can be used to reimburse medical payment and here’s the fun part-it usually will not count against you. The usual limit is $5000 and you can imagine how far that will get you in medical bills, but it’s something. Med pay is usually an inexpensive coverage that be increased or decreased based on your preference. In general liability and property, med pay is essentially the same, but it also has one other use. That med pay limit is great for settlements. Instead of going through the courts and lawyers, if both parties agree it can be given as a bargaining tool which is great if you’re the policy holder and don’t want a long drawn out battle. If you’re on the other side of this and think it’s a great idea to walk into a business and fall on purpose to get that settlement, that’s a terrible idea. That’s fraud. It’s a felony and you will go to jail.
Insurance is one of those tricky things that has all sorts of ins and outs. If you have questions regarding your policy, ECI is always here. Call, visit our office or online.
