(EMAILWIRE.COM, March 07, 2011 ) Chicago, ILL -- As Wisconsin lawmakers come ever closer to slashing the required levels of coverage that auto insurance liability policies issued in the state must provide, bills introduced to at least five other state legislatures this year would do just the opposite. Many state politicians have pushed in recent years to increase the minimum levels of financial protection in order to make them reflect rising medical costs, but few have been successful.

Two exceptions have been Maryland and Texas. Maryland and Texas liability insurance minimums both were raised at the beginning of this year after being approved by their respective state legislatures. One thing that sets these two successful efforts apart from most bills in current legislatures is that they increased the minimum levels at a much lower rate.

Maryland and Texas both previously had 20/40 bodily injury liability limits, which is the shorthand way of saying that policies issued in those states must include policyholder protection for at least up to $20,000 in damages sustained by one person and at least up to $40,000 when there are damages sustained by two or more people. The changes enacted by the legislatures raised those minimums by half—from 20/40 to 30/60.

But most of the currently active in other state governments—like in Nevada, Illinois, Connecticut, Maine and Nebraska—would at least double their states’ bodily injury liability minimums. In Nevada, they would go from 15/30 to 50/100; in Illinois, from 20/40 to 100/300; in Connecticut, from 20/40 to 50/100; in Nebraska, from 25/50 to 50/100; and in Maine, from 50/100 to 100/250.

Whether these proposed, large jumps in necessary amounts of coverage will survive the legislative process remains to be seen. The fact that these increases would bring with them consequent jumps in the cost of coverage may hold them back from becoming law. Illinois’ bill, for example, has already received an unfavorable vote from the Assembly Insurance Committee.

Source: http://1.usa.gov/hrnaCn

To learn more about this and other car insurance issues, readers can go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/texas/ where visitors will find informative resource pages and a quote-comparison generator that can help consumers in any state find the best rates for a policy.

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Benjamin Zitney
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