You got into a car accident and incurred injuries and medical bills. Now that you’re patched up, you’re wondering what aspects of your car insurance actually covered the bills. If you get into an accident with someone who holds insurance, their liability coverage takes care of your injuries and medical bills, although it doesn’t cover additional expenses while you’re out of work. Personal injury coverage, on the other hand, is an addition to your automobile insurance policy that you get specifically to cover medical bills, costs associated with personal injury, and lost wages. Personal injury coverage includes all of this under one policy rider, instead of requiring you to pay separately for personal injury and medical bill coverage. 17 states require automobile insurance to include personal injury coverage as part of the state minimum insurance.

Some advantages to adding personal injury coverage to your automobile insurance include protection against uninsured drivers, dealing with an inability to work due to an accident, and covering any gaps in medical bill payments from the other driver’s insurance. Other related items that this coverage pays for includes childcare costs, maintenance services, and medical travel expenses. Having the peace of mind that an accident isn’t going to turn your life upside down due to your missing work makes this coverage worth it.

It also doesn’t matter who was at fault for the accident. If you have personal injury protection, it covers you no matter what the accident situation was. Not all states offer personal injury protection specifically, but you can also find it under the name auto medical payments coverage.