Common Insurance Terms

Liability – Liability is defined as the legal responsibility for injury to another or damage to their property. Whether someone is liable (legally responsible) for an accident is something that ultimately is decided by a court of law, if the adjusters and attorneys don’t agree on who is liable first. 

Bodily Injury (BI) Liability Limit – The per person BI limit is the most the carrier will pay for all BI damages in any one accident. Bodily injury means bodily harm and includes medical expenses, all necessary costs of medical treatment for injury, past, present, and future; loss of income, loss of future earnings resulting from an injury; disfigurement, compensation for scarring and loss of looks; pain and suffering, this is an amount determined by a court to address the emotional or physical stress an accident or injuries caused. 

Property Damage (PD) Liability Limit

Property damage means damage to or destruction of property including the cost to repair the damage when the property is economically repairable; this is what is owed; actual cash value of damaged property, generally, the market value of the damaged property. If repair costs are more than the value of the property, then all that is owed is what the property is worth. Loss of use of the property is included.

Split Limits –  provides separate amounts of coverage for bodily injury and property damage. The amount of bodily injury coverage is further split into two sub-limits; a limit of coverage per person and a limit per accident. On a declarations page of the ATV policy, the liability limits will commonly look like this. $100,000 bodily injury per person/$300,000 per accident and $100,000 property damage.

Minimum vs. Adequate limits – Every state has a minimum liability that an ATV owner must carry to register the vehicle.  There is no way for you to limit how much you can be legally responsible for paying for damages. In some cases, judgments for damages can’t even be avoided by taking bankruptcy, so it is important to discuss with your agent the amount of coverage that you feel is adequate to cover your assets and future earnings.

Medical Payments – Medical Payments is a “no-fault” coverage. It pays for people being hurt in accidents, regardless of fault. The limit of liability for medical payments noted on the declarations page is a” per person” limit, and there is no limit to the number of people that can collect. 

Uninsured/Uninsured Motorist Coverage – Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists Coverage is liability coverage that the policyholder purchases in case other people negligently injure the policyholder and/or damage the ATV with their vehicle and do not carry any, or not enough, vehicle insurance. To collect Uninsured Motorists coverage, the vehicle that injured the insured must be uninsured/underinsured, and the vehicle operator must be at fault.

Damage to Your ATV – Physical Damage must be purchased to be in effect and coverage is provided for loss to your covered ATV.

It consists of two different coverages, Collision and Other than Collision. “Other than Collision” is often referred to as “Comprehensive.” Each coverage will have its own deductible. The policy pays the amount of the loss that exceeds the deductible.

Policyholders can purchase just Other than Collision coverage or both coverages. Companies won’t sell Collision coverage by itself due to the wording of the policy, and that collision is just considered an additional coverage to be comprehensive.

Definition of Collision – Collision is defined to mean the upset of the ATV, the ATV being overturned; the impact of the ATV with another vehicle or object, this includes hitting something with the ATV or the ATV getting hit by something else, whether moving or stationary.

Definition of Other than Collision (Comprehensive) – Other than Collision specifically includes, but is not limited to, the following causes of loss:

• Missiles or falling objects
• Fire
• Theft
• Other natural disasters as defined in the policy

Additional Coverages – Your agent can help you with other coverages that are available on the ATV policy such as carried contents.