Your auto policy is probably the most under-thought coverage you own.

Maryland requires 30/60/15 in liability, meaning $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per crash, and $15,000 for the other driver's property. That is genuinely all the law asks of you, and it is far less than one serious crash on the roads Bethesda drivers actually use. MDOT SHA counted 223,210 vehicles a day on the American Legion Bridge segment of I-495 in 2024, and 228,361 a day between River Road and the I-270 spur.

MDOT's own crash analysis of I-495 and the I-270 West Spur found nearly 1,000 crashes over the 2016 to 2018 study period, with close to 30 percent producing injuries or fatalities, 75 percent of them rear end and sideswipe collisions attributed to congestion, and 53 percent occurring during peak periods. A congested chain reaction at 25 miles an hour still totals cars and still produces injury claims. Two late-model SUVs will exhaust a $15,000 property damage limit before anyone has looked at a medical bill.

Bethesda's commuting pattern matters here too. ACS 2024 five-year data puts the mean one-way trip at 27.7 minutes, with 39.8 percent of workers driving alone, 9.6 percent on transit and 38.0 percent working from home. That last number is the one people forget to tell us. A household now driving 4,000 miles a year instead of 14,000 is a different risk from the one its policy was written for, and it is usually still being rated as a full-time commuter.

Our normal starting point in Bethesda is 250/500 liability with uninsured and underinsured motorist limits matched to it, and an umbrella layered over the house and the cars together. With the median owner-occupied home in Bethesda valued at $1,169,900 in the same census release, a judgment that runs past your liability limit has something real to attach to. We would rather set the limit now than explain it later.

Usually yes. Maryland requires carriers to offer PIP, but you can sign a waiver to remove it. The waiver saves a few dollars a month but eliminates first-dollar coverage for your medical bills and lost wages after an accident, regardless of fault.

If you have low-deductible health insurance and reliable income protection, the waiver might be fine. For most people, keeping PIP at $2,500–$5,000 is worth the small premium.

Often, yes — though there's a lot of room to manage the increase if it's done thoughtfully. The structure matters: which vehicle the teen is "primarily assigned" to, whether they're a listed driver or excluded driver, what discounts they qualify for (good student, driver's ed completion), and what carrier you're on.

This is one of the conversations where a real advisor pays for themselves several times over. We've helped families cut the teen-driver premium increase by 30–50% just by restructuring the policy correctly.

Sometimes on the initial quote — and that's part of how captive carriers compete. The honest answer is that year-one pricing is not the same as year-three or year-five pricing, and captive carriers often price-cut at acquisition then increase rates over time.

The bigger difference, though, is the structure. A captive agent can only sell their company's auto product, even if it doesn't fit your situation. We work across Erie, Chubb, Cincinnati, and others — and recommend what actually fits, which is sometimes more expensive on day one and almost always less expensive over a five-year horizon.

You call us first — not the carrier's 1-800 number. We open the claim, brief the carrier's adjuster on your version of events, coordinate the repair shop (or salvage process for a total loss), and stay involved through resolution.

For serious claims — injury, total loss, third-party liability — we're the ones pushing for the right outcome. That's the part of the relationship that's hardest to demonstrate in advance and easiest to feel when something actually happens.

Maryland is an at-fault state. The driver who causes a crash, through their insurer, is responsible for the damage. Maryland also still follows contributory negligence, which only a small handful of states do. If you are found even slightly at fault for a crash, you can be barred from recovering anything at all from the other driver. There is no reduction by percentage the way there is across the river in most states.

That rule bites hardest in exactly the traffic Bethesda drivers sit in every day. MDOT's analysis of I-495 and the I-270 West Spur found that 75 percent of crashes on that stretch were rear end and sideswipe collisions attributed to congested conditions, and 53 percent happened during peak periods. Those are the crashes where fault gets argued over inches and seconds: who changed lanes, who left following room, who was already stopped when the impact came.

The practical conclusion is that you should not plan on the other driver's policy being the thing that makes you whole. Personal Injury Protection pays your medical bills and lost wages regardless of who was at fault, which matters enormously if the fault question is contested. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage pays when the driver who hit you carries 30/60/15 or nothing. Collision pays to fix your car now rather than after the argument is settled.

So our advice in Bethesda is consistent: keep PIP rather than waive it, match your uninsured and underinsured limits to your liability limits, and document a crash properly at the scene with photographs of lane position and vehicle placement before anything moves. Under contributory negligence, a clear photograph is not paperwork. It is the difference between a paid claim and a denied one.