In Vermont, you have to have at least $25,000 in bodily injury coverage. This covers the medical and funeral expenses for one person in the car or whatever your vehicle hits. This applies even if you hit a pedestrian. You must have a maximum coverage of $50,000 for all persons in the same accident.

You also must have $10,000 in property damage to cover either the repair or replacement of the physical entity that you struck, like the guy who was driving down the road when you pulled out of your driveway on the way to get the maple syrup in the scenario above.

You also have to have uninsured/underinsured coverage in the amount of $25,000 for each person and $50,000 for all persons in your vehicle. This is in the event that the person who hits you and is at fault does not have insurance to pay for all the medical or funeral expenses that were incurred. If this happens then your insurance would pick up the balance of the costs up to $25,000 per person until it reached the maximum of $50,000 in total.

In the event the person did not have any insurance at all than you have to have $50,000 and $100,000 in coverage, which means the same thing. Your insurance company would pay for the medical or funeral expenses at $50,000 per person to a total of $100,000 for all persons. What these requirements do is make sure that no matter what happens all persons in a car accident are taken care of.

If you do not maintain the required car insurance in Vermont your vehicle registration may be revoked, your driver’s license may be suspended, and you may receive a fine of $100. You are required to carry proof of car insurance coverage in your vehicle at all times so that in case you are stopped by a police officer or you are in a car accident you can show at that time that you have car insurance. Your insurance company will usually give you a card to show proof of coverage.

Car insurance is to protect everyone, and not just a ploy to get money from the consumer. If you have proper coverage it will make that maple syrup you were after taste all the better after you get done trading your information due to your little fender-bender. Its winter, you’re watching the snow fall outside your picture window on a beautiful Saturday morning. You live in picturesque Montpelier, Vermont where the winters are notoriously cold and snowy. So you just made a great big stack of comforting pancakes and you want to pour some nice hot maple syrup over the warm buttery pile when you realize your 16 year old used the last of it and didn’t tell you. So aggravating, right? So you hop in your car, pull out of the driveway and bang you hit the guy who was minding his own business on his way to wherever it was he was going but got in the way of your frantic run to the store for more maple syrup in the land of maple syrup, Vermont. Hopefully, you have at least the required amount of car insurance for the state of Vermont.