488 Just bought and already rearended 488

In the US, you'll be required to carry liability insurance by state law. The states all have different minimums but you'll have a limit for third party liability relating to personal injury with one limit per injured third party and another limit of total for all third parties injured in the same accident, third party property damage, and some states require a small personal injury for first party as well. In my state the minimums are very low. 25k per person bodily 50k per accident bodily and 25k property. In my situation the at fault party only had 50k in property, which is double the state required mins to drive but still nowhere near enough to cover this damage.

Outside of that you can elect to purchase collision, which covers your own vehicles damage in the event of a collision. Comprehensive which covers your own vehicle from damages outside of a collision (I.E. a tree falls on your car parked outside).

Beyond that, you can purchase underinsured/uninsured coverage which normally only covers personal injury claims above the person at faults limits (if you had medical bills or injuries that exceed the 25k state min above for example). Some policies/states allow that coverage to extend to property damage but is rare.

Then there are a ton of small add ons, like rental car coverage, road side assistance and more.

Deductible amounts are set by the insurance purchaser and can be as low as $0 but the most common being $1,000 per claim. If you are at fault or it is a no fault claim you pay your deductible. If someone else is at fault their insurance handles the claim and the at fault pays their own deductible meaning you don't have to pay one. If the other insurance/person is not cooperating or do not have enough limits for coverage you can claim against your own policy and have them subrogate or go after the at fault party and/or their insurance. In this instance you pay your own deductible until your insurance is able to recover funds from the at fault party at which point they refund your deductible.

The issue with subrogation is that it prevents you from accessing a lot of sub-limits, claims, when you file as a first party claim with your insurance even though a third party was at fault. Most policies prevent a first party claim of diminished value or loss of use on property and pain and suffering and the like on personal injury. Most states however do have the right of the claimant to be made whole prior to their insurance company. However, this would still only go to the limits of the at fault parties insurance because the excess is picked up by your own insurance which you can't claim those against. If third party damages exceed the at faults party's limits they can be sued for the damages personally after insurance is exhausted by the damaged party and/or their insurance.

Meaning, if my 488 is deemed fixable, I will not be able to claim diminished value against my own insurance. So, I could with a lot of effort attempt to exhaust the limits of the at fault insurance for diminished value and loss of use before letting my insurance subrogate but this is difficult and greatly slows down the vehicle repair/total claim and in my case, the 50k limit the at fault party had would not cover loss of use and diminished value so I would still be out 25k+. If I wanted to try to recover that additional amount, I'd be forced to sue the at fault directly. That process can take in excess of 2-3 years to complete with judgement which still does not guarantee payment.

If a vehicle is a total loss, which this calculation is done different per state but normally is the cost of repairs + salvage value > value of the vehicle. The at fault insurance will pay you the value of the car. This can be a fight to get settled out because they way they calculate the value is inherently designed to be low. If you total your vehicle under your own insurance the same thing happens, unless you have a policy that is declared value then there is no argument and they pay the declared value of the vehicle. In subrogation, your insurance company pays you and then they go after the at faults insurance and possibly the at fault personally to recover their costs.

I feel very lucky that I've spent the last 11+ years in insurance (albeit placing insurance for companies and not auto specifically) to be able to understand all of this. The average person can easily not know their options.