Bodily Injury vs Personal Injury: Insurance BI and Legal Meaning

Auto · Two phrases, two jobs

Bodily injury liability pays other people when you are at fault for their injuries. “Personal injury” is a wider legal idea, and personal injury protection pays you. They are not the same line on the declarations.

On a Texas auto policy the liability floor is $30,000 bodily injury per person, $60,000 per accident, and $25,000 property damage. The first two numbers are the bodily-injury limit. They pay the other person’s medical bills, and sometimes lost wages, if you are legally responsible, up to that cap. An $80,000 judgment against a $30,000 per-person limit leaves the rest on you. That is example math. Property damage is the third number. It does not pay injuries. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, if you kept it, pays your injuries when the other driver has no insurance or not enough. A rejection of that coverage belongs in writing. Texas carriers offer it. This page is not saying the offer is a statute you should skip.

Personal injury protection is first-party coverage. It pays you and your passengers. It is not the liability floor, and it is not health insurance. Do not assume a wage percent. Medical payments coverage is narrower still. In ordinary legal talk, “personal injury” can mean harm to a person that is broader than a broken bone, including things like libel on some liability forms. An auto policy does not pick up that broader meaning unless an endorsement says so. Homeowners liability is usually bodily injury and property damage to others. A personal-injury endorsement, if you bought one, is a different grant. This is not legal advice.

The policy: Texas auto and what it covers. The other driver’s missing limit: uninsured motorist. Why the floor exists, without a start year: when liability became required. Price is not the same as the limit: what you are comparing. Registration checks liability: insurance and registration.

Read the bodily-injury limit as the cap for other people, and PIP as the coverage that pays you. Ask an agent or get a quote.