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

Maryland's legal floor is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident for bodily injury and $15,000 for property damage. That is the floor, not a target, and the roads most Rockville drivers use every day argue for a lot more. MDOT SHA's 2024 counts put I-270 through the city at roughly 186,000 to 213,000 vehicles a day, Rockville Pike at about 48,000 between Montrose Parkway and MD 28, and Veirs Mill Road at about 41,000 east of Twinbrook Parkway.

For most Rockville households we start at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident on liability, match uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage to those limits, and add a personal umbrella of at least $1 million over the top. The umbrella is usually the cheapest coverage on the whole policy per dollar of protection, and it sits over your home as well as your cars.

The number that should drive the decision is not the car, it is what you own. Equity in a Rockville house, retirement accounts and future earnings are all reachable in a judgment above your limits. If you have a teen driver on the policy, the case for higher limits gets stronger, not weaker.

We are an independent agency, so we can quote those limits across more than 100 carriers and show you the actual difference in premium rather than describing it. In our experience the step from state minimum to real limits costs far less than people assume, and it is the single most consequential change most drivers here can make to a policy.

Usually yes, and driving less is a weaker argument for dropping it than people think. Maryland requires carriers to offer personal injury protection and lets you sign a waiver to remove it. The waiver saves a few dollars a month and gives up first dollar coverage for medical bills and lost wages, paid regardless of who caused the crash and without waiting on a liability investigation.

Rockville's own commuting profile is why this matters here. Census estimates for the city show 32.7 percent of workers now work from home, 48.0 percent drive alone, 10.3 percent use public transportation, and the mean travel time to work is 30.7 minutes. So a large share of Rockville households drive less than they used to, but they are still on foot at Metro, on a Ride On bus, or crossing Rockville Pike, and PIP follows the person, not just the car. It covers you as a pedestrian struck by a vehicle, as a passenger in someone else's car, and it covers your household members and your passengers.

That pedestrian point is not theoretical in this city. The two fatal crashes Rockville recorded in 2025, on Frederick Road and at East Jefferson Street and Rollins Avenue, were both pedestrian crashes.

PIP is also independent of health insurance, which means it can pick up deductibles, copays and the gaps a high deductible health plan leaves, and it pays lost wages that health insurance never touches. It is inexpensive. We generally recommend keeping it, and increasing it above the minimum if there are teen drivers or frequent passengers in the household.

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 (tort) state: the driver who causes an accident is responsible for the resulting damages. Maryland also requires insurers to offer PIP for first-party medical coverage, and follows a strict contributory-negligence rule, which makes carrying strong liability and UM/UIM limits especially important.