Almost nobody reads their auto policy. Almost everybody should read the declarations page, which is the two-page summary at the front. It is the only document that states, in one place, who is covered, what is covered, and for how much. Errors on it are common, and they are cheap to fix before a claim and expensive to discover after one.
Start with the policy period and the named insured
The top of the page lists the effective and expiration dates. Most personal auto policies run six months, which is why the premium you quote and the premium you pay for a year are different numbers. Confirm the dates and confirm the spelling of every named insured. A misspelled name is harmless, but a missing spouse or an adult child who still lives in the household is not.
Below that you will find the rated drivers and often the excluded drivers. An excluded driver has no coverage at all when operating your car, even in an emergency. If someone was excluded years ago to lower the premium and now drives occasionally, that exclusion is still in force.
Check the garaging address and the annual mileage
Rates are set by where the vehicle is parked overnight, not where you get your mail. If you moved, if a student took a car to another city, or if you now work from home and drive 6,000 miles instead of 15,000, the rating information is wrong. Mileage overstatements cost you money every month. Address errors can cause a coverage dispute.
Read the coverage grid line by line
The middle of the page is a grid, one row per coverage, one column per vehicle. Common lines and what they mean:
- Bodily injury liability, shown as two numbers such as 100/300. That is $100,000 per injured person and $300,000 per accident, paid to other people you injure.
- Property damage liability, a single number, paid for damage you cause to other people's property.
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist, which pays you when the at-fault driver has no insurance or not enough. In many states this is the most undervalued coverage on the page.
- Collision, which repairs your car after a crash, subject to a deductible.
- Comprehensive, sometimes called other than collision, which covers theft, hail, glass, flood, and animal strikes, subject to its own deductible.
- Medical payments or personal injury protection, which pays medical bills for you and your passengers regardless of fault.
- Rental reimbursement and towing, small coverages with daily and per-event caps.
A blank or a dash in a row means that coverage does not exist on that vehicle. It is worth checking each column separately, because coverage is frequently added to a new car and never matched on the older one.
Look at the deductibles per vehicle, not per policy
Deductibles are set per vehicle and per coverage. It is normal and often sensible to carry a $1,000 collision deductible on an older car and $500 on a newer one. It is not normal to discover after a hailstorm that the comprehensive deductible on the family sedan was raised to $2,000 during a cost-cutting call two years ago.
Find the discount list and verify each one
Most declarations pages itemize applied discounts: multi-policy, multi-vehicle, paid in full, paperless, safe driver, good student, defensive driving course, anti-theft, telematics participation. Discounts expire. A good student discount stops when the student graduates and is rarely replaced with anything. A defensive driving credit typically lasts three years. If a discount you qualify for is not listed, ask for it in writing and ask for the effective date.
Confirm the lienholder or lessor
If you have a loan or a lease, the lender is listed as loss payee or additional insured. If that section is blank or names a lender you refinanced away from, the claim check can be delayed or issued to the wrong party. Lenders also buy expensive force-placed coverage when they cannot verify your policy, and the most common reason they cannot verify it is stale lienholder information.
What to do with what you find
Write down every discrepancy and send them together, in writing, to your agent or carrier. Ask for a corrected declarations page rather than a verbal confirmation, and keep it. Do this once a year, ideally at renewal, and again after any move, marriage, new driver, vehicle sale, or change in how far you drive. Fifteen minutes with this page catches more real problems than an hour of comparison shopping.