Oregon Liability Insurance

Oregon Personal Injury Law Questions and Answers

A: Oregon liability insurance is a required form of insurance that protects you if you are responsible for an automobile accident in Portland or anywhere else within the United States.

If you cause a collision, your Oregon liability insurance will provide you with an attorney.  In the ideal situation, the lawyer they provide will negotiate a settlement with anyone you’ve injured, within your policy limits.  When it works out this way, you will have very little involvement, and will not be too inconvenienced.

However, it doesn’t always work out this way. Rather than paying a fair amount to the injured person, and letting both them and you get on with your lives, many insurance companies aim to pay as little as possible. Your insurance company controls the ligation process, and may sometimes make decisions that you do not agree with. Based on your contractual agreement with the insurance company, they are allowed to proceed with litigation regardless of whether you agree with them or not.

For example, perhaps the injured person is willing to settle for $25,000, and your policy limit is $25,000.  If your insurance company paid them, it would be no hassle to you. But your insurance company may believe that they can get away with paying much less, and therefore refuse to pay the $25,000. In that case, you may end up going to trial. Your personal belief about whether the person’s injury is worth$25,000 is irrelevant to your insurance company. They get to control the litigation.

Despite all these possible situations, Oregon liability insurance will save you, in most cases, from having any of your personal assets affected in a Portland car crash.