Probably the best known for a fictional tale about a little girl who is caught up in a tornado or twister and lands in the amazing and mystical Land of Oz, Kansas is the setting for the Wizard of Oz. While traversing down the yellow brick road, Dorothy’s last concern was insurance or the minimum required coverage.  She never gave it any thoughts perhaps because she was walking and not driving. Or maybe because she was just a little girl.

The reality of things is that you do have to drive your car on the Kansas roads if you are a resident who owns a car here. Unlike the yellow brick road, you will not find lions and tigers on the road here. However you will find other drivers, some good and some not so good. This is where the necessity for car insurance comes in.

Kansas has car insurance requirements that may seem extensive if you are from a state that only has bodily injury and property damage requirements. Kansas requires that vehicle owners have not only bodily injury coverage of 25/50 ($25,000 per person/$50,000 per accident to cover medical and/or funeral expenses), and property damage of $10,000.

The other requirements are that your policy includes coverage for Personal Injury Protection. This is for your benefit; it pays regardless of who is at fault in the accident for your expenses. The minimum allowable for this coverage is $4,500 per person in medical expenses, $900 a month in case you have disability or you lose your income due to the accident. It must pay $25 a day for any in-home services that are required, $2,000 for funeral expenses, and $4,500 rehabilitative treatment. Another aspect that is required within this PIP coverage is that your survivor receives $900 a month for one year, due to disability or loss of income.

The final aspect that must be covered is uninsured/underinsured insurance to make sure that if you have an accident with someone who is either not insured or does not have enough insurance to cover the expenses is $25,000 per person, and $50,000 per accident.

Obviously, the State of Kansas wants to make sure that you are covered if the unexpected were to happen on the roads. Unlike, Dorothy there is no Glenda the Good Witch to help us out of the mishaps that may come upon us in our daily lives. Neither do we have a “Wizard” to give us all the things that we need. In the real world we must take care of and protect our interests and insure our vehicles properly.