Medical payments coverage is the part of your car insurance coverage in your policy that would pay the medical bills if you, your passenger, or family member got injured in a car accident.
What is medical payments Coverage?
Medical Payments coverage (or MedPay for short), pays the medical expenses for you or a passenger after a car accident if one of you gets hurt.
MedPay covers:
- Ambulance fees after an auto accident
- X-rays, surgeries, or a prostheses
- Health insurance co-pays
- Doctors and hospital visits
- Nursing services
- Funeral services
After you file a claim, your insurance company helps cover these medical expenses, usually without a deductible. They’ll pay out up to the coverage limits you chose when getting an insurance quote.
What does MedPay exclude?
MedPay coverage doesn’t extend to the drivers or passengers of another car in an auto accident. If you’re at-fault in a car accident that injures someone outside your vehicle, that falls under your liability insurance.
Specifically, bodily injury liability insurance pays the medical expenses (and funeral costs, in a worst case scenario) of other people in an accident who weren’t riding in your car.
How is MedPay different from personal injury protection?
Since both MedPay and Personal Injury Protection (PIP) cover medical expenses, it’s easy to get them confused. But there are several key differences.
Auto insurance policies include PIP in no-fault states like Pennsylvania or New York. You can usually only buy medical payments coverage in states such as Illinois or Tennessee. In other words, your insurer will offer one, but not both, depending on where you live. Texas is the exception here, as both PIP and MedPay are available in the Lone Star state.
Medical payments insurance is usually optional, whereas some states require a car insurance policy to include PIP coverage. Personal injury protection also offers more coverage options.
The main difference is PIP covers lost wages or child care, public transportation to and from doctor’s appointments, or the costs of essential services you can’t perform while recovering from your injuries.
If you have health insurance, do you need MedPay?
MedPay is usually an optional coverage. If you have health insurance, do you really need it?
Most health insurance policies require that you pay co-pays and deductibles. Coverage could exclude ambulance fees if the driver takes you to a hospital that’s out-of-network. They also have coverage limits.
Between health insurance deductibles that could be thousands of dollars or more, and medical costs of an auto accident for multiple family members, you could struggle to cover the costs of medical treatment.
Medical payments insurance helps with any accident-related medical costs that might not be covered by your health insurance, and that reimbursement could make all the difference for your family.