Liability cover
This is the part that pays other people. If you cause a crash, it covers the injuries and the property damage on the other side, up to the limits you chose when the policy was written.
Your state sets a floor, and that floor is usually low enough to be worrying. A single serious injury claim can pass a minimum limit quickly, and anything above it follows you personally rather than the policy.
Worth knowing: liability never repairs your own car. If that surprises you, you are in good company, and it is exactly why the next two parts exist.
Collision cover
This repairs or replaces your own vehicle after an impact, whether you hit another car, a guardrail or a curb, and regardless of who was at fault. You pay your deductible first and the policy handles the rest.
The ceiling is the value of the car, not what you paid for it. On an older vehicle that ceiling can drop below what you would spend on the cover itself, which is the moment worth reviewing whether to keep it.
Worth knowing: if a lender still holds a claim on the vehicle, they will almost always require this part regardless of the car's age.
Weather and theft cover
Everything that happens to the car when nobody hit it. Hail, flood, fire, a fallen limb, a deer, a broken window, or the vehicle simply being gone one morning. Damage that occurs while parked usually lands here.
It carries its own deductible, separate from the collision one, and the two can be set at different levels. Drivers in hail country often keep this deductible lower than the rest of the policy.
Worth knowing: glass claims are sometimes treated differently from other damage under this part, so it is worth asking how yours is handled.
