If you do nothing other than buy your policy, you will get the best amount of uninsured motorist coverage you can get given your other policy limits.

Virginia requires all auto policies pay for harm done to you and your family by drivers with little or no insurance of their own. Put simply, it protects your family when your uninsured motorist payment limits are more than the insurance available from the bad driver.

This can result when that driver has no insurance, or when that driver has chosen to skimp on insurance for those they hurt. (Technically, uninsured motorist coverage includes both uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.)

Given that Virginia allows drivers to get by with only $25,000 to pay for injuries to those they hurt and $20,000 for harm to other people’s property, medical bills alone from a car wreck can quickly exceed the bad driver’s insurance. That happens even more quickly if you must miss work. Without uninsured motorist insurance, you and your family could be stuck absorbing all those extra costs yourself.

And uninsured motorist coverage is relatively cheap for what it might pay.

Perhaps that is why many insurance companies try to convince insureds to reject the uninsured motorist insurance amounts that automatically apply under Virginia law. Our state requires your uninsured motorist coverage amount (protecting you and your family) equal the coverage amount you purchased to pay for injuries or property damage that you might cause others—unless you specifically reject those matching uninsured motorist limits, taking less than the law entitles you to take, without really saving that much. You are paying more to protect other people than to protect yourself.

But if insurers convince to you reject the matching limits required by law, you are saving them money if you are in an accident. Is that why you get insurance?

So our suggestion: get uninsured motorist limits that match your liability limits. And get high liability limits. A wreck involving two or more cars can easily cause $1 million in medical bills, pain and suffering, lost wages, or property damage. Do you want to count on the other driving having enough insurance to pay for what you lose when a wreck happens?

So, once again, do nothing and get uninsured motorist coverage to protect you in an amount that matches the protection your policy provides those you might hurt.