It was Labor Day, the grill was cooling, and I was at the kitchen table with a highlighter and three pages of paper I had never read top to bottom in nineteen years of marriage. Tina walked past, looked at the stack, and said, "You know nobody actually reads those." That was the point.
The declarations page is the summary sheet of an auto policy. It lists who is covered, which vehicles, what kinds of coverage, the limits and the deductibles, and what each piece costs. Ours is longer than one page, but everyone calls it the dec page. Our fall renewal is coming in a few weeks, and I want to know exactly what we are paying $1,308 every six months for before I start asking anyone about prices.
Here is what I found, in the order it appeared.
Policy number, the policy period, our names as named insureds, and the house on the north end of town. Then the drivers: Brian, Tina, and Garrett, listed as a permit driver since July. Then the two vehicles with their VINs, the 2011 Sienna and the 2014 Silverado, each with a garaging address and a use category. Both say "commute." That is right for the truck. The van is closer to "Tina's errands and Lainey's volleyball," but I don't think there's a box for that.
It is worth checking the VINs against the cars. Ours matched. I've heard of people paying for a vehicle they sold two years ago.
The coverages, line by line
- Bodily injury and property damage liability, 100/300/100. This pays for injuries and damage we cause to other people. We raised it from the state minimum in May for $54 per six months. Applies to both vehicles.
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist. This covers us if someone hits us and has no insurance, or not enough. Missouri requires uninsured motorist coverage. It is one of the cheaper lines on the page.
- Medical payments. A small amount per person for medical bills after a crash, regardless of fault. Ours is a modest limit.
- Comprehensive, $500 deductible. Pays for damage that isn't a collision with another car: hail, theft, a falling limb, fire, and hitting an animal. With the deer around here in the fall, this line matters on the truck.
- Collision, $500 deductible. Pays to fix our own vehicle after a crash, whoever is at fault, minus the deductible. This is the most expensive line on each vehicle.
- Towing and roadside. A few dollars per vehicle.
- Rental reimbursement. A few dollars per vehicle.
The two I forgot about
The last two lines are the ones I didn't remember buying. Together they cost about $46 every six months across both vehicles. I called our agent to ask when we'd added them. Answer: years ago, when we first set up the policy and the van was newer. Nobody had looked since.
Towing and roadside pays for a tow, a jump, a lockout or a flat change, up to a limit. With a 14-year-old van and a truck past 135,000 miles, I'm keeping that one. A single tow from the edge of town could cost more than a few years of the add-on.
Rental reimbursement pays toward a rental car while ours is in the shop after a covered claim. I'm less sure about this one. We have three drivers and two vehicles, and if one is in the shop, we usually make do. I didn't drop it yet. I put a question mark next to it to ask about at renewal.
What each line costs
The dec page breaks the premium down by vehicle and by coverage, which is the most useful part of the whole document. For us, collision is the biggest single item on both vehicles, then liability, then comprehensive. The add-ons and medical payments are small. The Silverado costs more to cover than the Sienna, mostly because it is newer and worth more.
That gave me a question I hadn't thought to ask before. The van is worth less every year. Collision on it will eventually cost more than it's worth to carry. Not yet, but I wrote the math down to check again in the spring.
The van is at about 194,000 miles now, the truck about 138,000. Writing those down next to the coverages made the page feel less like a legal document and more like something I can actually manage, which is how I feel about most things once they're in the spreadsheet.
I put the highlighter back in the drawer, filed the pages in the folder with the titles, and told Tina I had read the whole thing. She said, "Was it good?" I said it had a slow start but the ending was strong. She did not ask any follow-up questions.