Kentucky is a PIP state for automobile accidents. PIP is short for Personal Injury Protection. You may also hear these benefits referred to as Basic Reparation Benefits or No-Fault Benefits. I am not going into great details hear as to how these benefits work. Here is the nut shell. You have $10,000.00 of benefits that will pay your first $10,000.00 of medical bills and or lost wages.
Those of you that know me have heard me say that this is simply not enough for most accidents. I urge everyone to I run into (just figuratively) to purchase additional benefits called Added Reparation Benefits. For a small increase in your premium you can dramatically increase the coverage that is available to you.
With all of the talk about health care reform I have been looking at what is going on north of the border in Canada. In Ontario government is making plans to reduce their medical rehabilitation benefit from $100,000.00 to $50,000.00 for non- catastrophically injured people. This is part their no-fault benefits. While I am urging people to increase their benefits in Kentucky the Canadian government is forcing everyone to take a reduction in these benefits. This will significantly alter the quality of care victims of automobile accidents will receive.
Interestingly enough it will increase the attorney fee collected. I am sure that most Personal Injury lawyers in Ontario don’t care about this change because of this.
I ran across an interview done by Brenda Hollingsworth, an Ottawa personal injury attorney, which was a breath of fresh air. Brenda is speaking out against the decrease in medical rehabilitation benefits that will be available to seriously injured car accident victims starting in the summer of 2010. In the video, Brenda talked about how injured car accident victims will run out of their Ontario rehabilitation funds long before the ten-years they are supposed to last. The 50% reductions in benefits will have catastrophic affects on many families.
Brenda believes this change will increase the number of lawsuits required because injured people will have to sue the drivers who hit them to ensure they can pay for physiotherapy, medication and other medical needs.
I salute Brenda for standing up for the victims of auto accidents. In Kentucky we already have a low amount of PIP benefits that is required. Do yourself a favor and call your insurance agent and raise your coverage today!
