Your Declarations Page

Every auto insurance policy comes with a summary page tucked at the front of the packet, usually one or two pages long, dense with abbreviations and numbers arranged in a grid. Most drivers glance at it once when the policy arrives, confirm the premium looks about right, and file it away. That page is called the declarations page, often shortened to “dec page” by agents and adjusters, and it is worth learning to read properly, because it is the single document that tells you what your policy actually promises to do.

What a declarations page actually is

The declarations page is a summary, not the contract itself. The full contract — the part that explains definitions, exclusions, and the conditions under which the insurer will or won’t pay — lives in a much longer document sometimes called the policy form or policy booklet. The declarations page pulls the essential facts out of that longer document and lays them out in one place: who is insured, what vehicle or vehicles are covered, what coverage types apply, what the limits and deductibles are for each one, and what period of time the policy covers.

Think of it as the label on a prescription bottle rather than the pharmacology textbook. The label tells you the dose and the schedule; it doesn’t explain everything the medication does. Similarly, the dec page tells you the shape of your coverage — the categories and the dollar amounts — without spelling out every exclusion or condition that governs how a claim gets handled. When something goes wrong and you need to understand exactly what’s covered, the dec page tells you where to look, but the full policy form is where the fine print lives.

Because it’s a summary, the dec page is also the fastest way to check that your policy matches what you actually agreed to buy. Insurers update these pages every time something changes — a renewal, an address change, a new driver added to the household, a vehicle swap — so the version you’re holding should reflect the most current terms of your coverage as of its effective date.

Where to find your coverage lines

Near the top of the page, after your name, address, and policy number, you’ll typically find a block listing the vehicles on the policy, each identified by year, make, model, and the last several digits of the vehicle identification number (VIN). Below or beside that vehicle information sits the part most people find confusing: a table of coverage lines, each with its own name, its own limit, and sometimes its own deductible.

Here’s what the common ones mean:

• Bodily injury liability — pays for injuries to other people when you’re found at fault in an accident. This is usually listed with two numbers, such as a per-person limit and a per-accident limit.
• Property damage liability — pays for damage you cause to someone else’s car, fence, mailbox, or other property when you’re at fault.
• Collision coverage — pays to repair or replace your own vehicle after a collision with another car or object, regardless of who caused it, subject to your deductible.
• Comprehensive coverage — pays for damage to your own vehicle from causes other than a collision: theft, vandalism, fire, hail, a cracked windshield, an animal running into the road.
• Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage — steps in when the at-fault driver has no insurance, or not enough insurance, to cover the damage they caused you.
• Medical payments or personal injury protection (PIP) — helps pay medical costs for you and your passengers after an accident, regardless of fault, depending on your state and policy.
• Rental reimbursement and towing/roadside assistance — smaller, optional add-ons that reimburse you for a rental car while yours is being repaired, or cover a tow truck call.

Not every policy carries every line. Some drivers carry only liability coverage; others add collision and comprehensive, especially if the vehicle is financed or leased, since lenders typically require it. The dec page will simply omit or leave blank any coverage line you didn’t purchase, so an empty row isn’t a printing error — it usually means that protection isn’t part of your policy.

If you have more than one vehicle on the policy, look closely at whether each coverage line applies to all vehicles equally or whether the limits differ by car. It’s common for a household to insure an older paid-off car with liability only, while a newer financed car carries the full set of coverages. The dec page should make this clear vehicle by vehicle, though the layout varies by insurer.

Where to find your limits and deductibles

Once you’ve identified which coverage lines apply to you, the next step is understanding the two numbers attached to most of them: the limit and the deductible.

A limit is the maximum amount the insurer will pay for a covered loss. Liability limits are usually written as a set of numbers separated by slashes, such as one figure for injury to a single person, a second figure for total injury payout per accident, and a third figure for property damage per accident. If you see something like “100/300/50,” that’s shorthand for a per-person injury limit, a per-accident injury limit, and a property damage limit, in that order — the exact numbers vary enormously by driver and by state, and yours will be printed plainly on the page rather than left to guesswork. Collision and comprehensive coverage generally list a single limit, often tied to the actual cash value of the vehicle, since the insurer won’t pay more to repair a car than the car is worth.

A deductible is the amount you agree to pay out of pocket before the insurance coverage kicks in on a claim. Deductibles typically apply to collision and comprehensive coverage, not to liability coverage — you don’t pay a deductible for damage you cause to someone else’s car, only for repairs to your own vehicle under collision or comprehensive. A higher deductible generally corresponds to a lower premium, and a lower deductible generally corresponds to a higher premium, because you’re asking the insurer to absorb more of the small, routine costs.

Some policies list separate deductibles for comprehensive and collision, and occasionally a lower deductible specifically for glass repair or a flat “$0 glass” line — check whether that applies to your policy rather than assuming it does.

It helps to read each coverage line as a single sentence: “For [this type of loss], the insurer will pay up to [this limit], after I pay [this deductible].” Reading it that way turns a grid of numbers into something closer to plain English, and makes it obvious which coverages have no deductible at all — liability and, on many policies, medical payments or PIP — because those are the ones where the insurer pays first, without you covering an initial slice of the cost.

The dec page will also list the policy period — a start date and an end date, usually six or twelve months apart — along with the premium for the term and how it’s broken into installments if you’re not paying in full. Check that the dates line up with what you expect; a mismatch here is one of the more common clerical errors that slips through at renewal.

What to check for accuracy

A declarations page is only useful if it’s correct, and mistakes do happen — from simple typos to outdated information carried over from a previous term. A short review each time you get a new dec page, whether from a renewal, a policy change, or a new purchase, can catch problems before they matter. Look at:

• Your name and address — spelled correctly and current, since this affects both correspondence and, in some cases, rating.
• The vehicle details — year, make, model, and VIN should match the vehicle you actually drive. A single wrong digit in the VIN can, in theory, create confusion about which car a policy covers.
• Every driver who should be listed — anyone in the household who regularly drives the insured vehicle is generally expected to appear on the policy. An unlisted driver is one of the more common gaps people discover only after something has already gone wrong.
• The coverage lines you believe you bought — if you specifically asked for rental reimbursement, roadside assistance, or uninsured motorist coverage, confirm the corresponding line actually appears with a limit next to it, rather than assuming a conversation with an agent automatically translated into the paperwork.
• The limits and deductibles themselves — compare them against whatever quote, application, or prior policy you have on hand. If a limit looks lower than what you selected, or a deductible looks higher, that’s worth a call to your agent or insurer before you need to file a claim, not after.
• The policy period dates — especially around a renewal, to make sure there isn’t a gap between when the old term ended and the new one began.
• Lienholder or lessor information, if your car is financed or leased — the dec page often lists the lender, and an outdated or missing entry here can cause friction with the lender even though it has nothing to do with your day-to-day coverage.

None of this requires special expertise — it’s mostly a matter of comparing the printed page against what you know to be true about your household, your vehicles, and what you intended to purchase. If anything looks off, the most direct path is a phone call or message to your agent or the insurer’s customer service line, asking them to explain or correct the specific line in question. Keeping a copy of each dec page as you renew, rather than only the most recent one, also gives you an easy way to spot when a limit or deductible has quietly shifted from one term to the next — something that can happen at renewal even when you didn’t request any changes.

Reading the dec page once, carefully, when a new one arrives takes only a few minutes, and it turns the document from a piece of paperwork you barely glance at into a genuine reference — one you’ll actually understand if you ever need to check exactly what your policy covers.

Your declarations page—often just called the “dec page” by agents and adjusters—is the summary sheet that sits at the front of your auto policy. It lists your vehicles, your coverage limits, your deductibles, and the address the insurer has on file for you. Most drivers glance at it once, when the policy first arrives, and then never look at it again. That’s a problem, because a dec page is really a snapshot in time. It reflects the facts about your life and your car as they existed on the day the policy was written or last renewed. Everything after that is on you to report.

Why a declarations page can go stale

Insurance companies don’t automatically know when your life changes. Unless you call, email, or update your account through an app or web portal, your insurer is still operating on old information—sometimes information that’s a year or more out of date, since many policies renew annually or every six months without any prompt for you to review the details.

This matters for a simple reason: your declarations page is one of the documents an insurer will look at closely if you ever file a claim. If the vehicle description, the address, the listed drivers, or the coverage limits no longer match reality, it can slow down a claim, create confusion about what’s actually covered, or leave you carrying protection that doesn’t fit your current situation. None of this means coverage vanishes the moment something changes. It means the paperwork and the facts have drifted apart, and that gap is worth closing before it becomes relevant at the worst possible time.

A few common life events tend to push a dec page out of date without the driver realizing it:

• Moving to a new home, even a few miles away, which can shift your rating territory and the address your insurer associates with the vehicle
• Paying off a car loan or lease, which changes who has a financial interest in the vehicle
• A teenager getting a license, or an adult child moving out and taking a car with them
• Switching from commuting daily to working from home, or the reverse
• Adding aftermarket parts, a trailer hitch, or other modifications to a vehicle
• A change in marital status, which can affect which drivers and vehicles are grouped together on a policy

None of these events require you to buy a new policy. Most of the time, they just require a phone call or a quick update through your insurer’s website so the dec page catches up to reality.

Vehicle and address details worth checking

Start with the basics, because they’re the easiest things to overlook and the easiest to fix.

The vehicle identification number and description

Every vehicle on your policy should be listed with a VIN, year, make, and model that match what you actually drive. If you traded in a car, sold one, or added a second vehicle to the household, check that the dec page reflects the current lineup. It’s not unusual for an old vehicle to linger on a policy after it’s gone, or for a replacement vehicle to be added under a temporary listing that never gets finalized.

The garaging address

This is the address where the insurer believes your car is typically parked overnight, and it’s different from your mailing address if the two ever diverge. Garaging address affects how a vehicle is rated, because location influences things like theft rates, weather exposure, and traffic density in ways that are baked into how insurers price risk. If you’ve moved, or if a vehicle is now kept at a different address than where the policy was originally written, the garaging address on file may no longer be accurate.

Listed drivers

Check who is named as a driver on the policy. If someone has moved out and taken their vehicle with them, or if a driver needs to be added because they now regularly use one of the household’s vehicles, the dec page should reflect that. An outdated driver list doesn’t automatically create a coverage problem, but it’s one of the first things that can cause friction if a claim ever needs to be sorted out.

Lienholder or loss payee information

If you financed or leased your vehicle, the lender or leasing company is usually listed on the dec page as a lienholder or loss payee. Once a loan is paid off, that listing should be removed. If it isn’t, it usually doesn’t cause harm, but it’s a loose thread worth tying up, especially since some claim payments for vehicle damage may be issued jointly to you and a lienholder that no longer has any financial stake in the car.

Coverage limits that may no longer fit

Beyond the factual details, it’s worth looking at whether the numbers on your dec page still make sense for your life today. A limit that felt reasonable a few years ago may not match your current vehicle, driving habits, or financial picture.

Liability limits

These are the limits that pay for injury or property damage you cause to others in an at-fault accident. They’re usually shown as a set of numbers—something like per-person, per-accident, and property damage figures. The exact numbers that make sense for you depend on your assets, your driving exposure, and your own comfort with risk, not on a one-size-fits-all rule. If your financial situation has changed significantly since you first set these limits—more savings, a home purchase, a growing family—it’s worth revisiting whether the liability limits you chose years ago still reflect how much you’d want protected today.

Comprehensive and collision deductibles

These deductibles are the amount you pay out of pocket before coverage kicks in for damage to your own vehicle from a collision, or from other causes like weather, theft, or animal strikes. Deductible amounts are often set once and forgotten. If your emergency savings have grown or shrunk since you chose your deductible, or if the value of your vehicle has changed a lot, it’s worth checking whether the deductible still fits your ability to pay it comfortably if you needed to.

Vehicle valuation for older cars

As a car ages, its market value declines. Comprehensive and collision coverage are generally tied to a vehicle’s actual value, so an older car may be worth carrying less coverage on, or worth reviewing to make sure you’re not paying for protection that has become mismatched with what the car is actually worth if it were totaled. This is a personal calculation, not a rule, but it’s a common reason people revisit their dec page as a vehicle gets older.

Rental reimbursement, roadside assistance, and other add-ons

Many policies include optional coverages like rental car reimbursement or roadside assistance. Check whether these still make sense. If you’ve since gotten a separate roadside assistance membership through another provider, or if you now have consistent access to a second vehicle, some of these add-ons might be redundant. Conversely, if your circumstances have changed—longer commutes, an older vehicle more prone to breakdowns—these add-ons might be worth adding if they aren’t already there.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

This coverage responds when the other driver in an accident doesn’t have insurance, or doesn’t have enough of it to cover the damage. It’s easy to set once and forget entirely, but it’s worth checking that the limit is still one you’d feel comfortable relying on, particularly since this is the coverage that protects you and your passengers when someone else’s insurance falls short.

When to request an updated page

You don’t need to wait for a renewal to get a corrected declarations page. Insurers can typically issue an updated one whenever a change is processed, and it’s reasonable to ask for a fresh copy any time you make a change to your policy. A few situations where requesting an updated dec page is worth doing right away:

• After adding, removing, or replacing a vehicle
• After adding or removing a driver from the household
• After moving to a new address, even within the same city
• After paying off an auto loan or ending a lease
• After changing any coverage limit or deductible
• Before a big trip or a change in how a vehicle is used, such as adding a rideshare arrangement or letting a young driver use the car regularly

The process is usually simple: a call to your agent or insurer, or a request through the online account or app, will trigger a new dec page reflecting the change. It’s worth reading the new version, not just filing it away, since this is your chance to confirm the update was applied correctly.

It’s also worth building in a habit of checking your dec page once a year, even if nothing has obviously changed. Set a reminder around your renewal date, pull up the document, and read through it slowly—vehicle details, address, driver list, limits, and deductibles. It takes a few minutes and it’s the simplest way to make sure the paperwork you’re relying on actually describes the coverage you think you have.

Somewhere on the first page of your auto policy, usually in a boxed table near the top, sits a short block of text describing your car. Most drivers glance at it once, confirm the make and model look right, and move on. That block of text is doing more work than it appears to. It is not just an identifier for the insurer’s records – it is one of the pieces of information that the rest of the policy is built around. If it drifts out of sync with the vehicle you actually drive, the mismatch can quietly change how a claim gets handled long before anyone notices there was a problem.

Why the vehicle listing matters

An auto insurance policy is not a single flat promise to cover “your driving.” It is a bundle of coverage lines – liability, collision, comprehensive, medical payments, uninsured motorist, and others depending on what you bought – each of which is priced and written around a specific, described vehicle. The insurer used details about that vehicle to decide how likely it is to be stolen, how expensive it is to repair, how it performs in a crash, and roughly what it’s worth. All of that feeds into your premium and into the limits and terms that appear on your declarations page.

When the car listed on the page is the car in your driveway, none of this is visible to you. The system works in the background and you never have to think about it. The listing becomes visible, and important, at exactly the moment you need it most: when you file a claim. A claims adjuster’s first step in reviewing a claim is almost always to confirm that the vehicle involved matches the vehicle described in the policy. That comparison is routine, but it is not optional, and it is where an outdated or incorrect listing can turn a straightforward claim into a slower, more complicated one.

It helps to think of the declarations page less like a label and more like the boundary of the agreement. Everything inside that boundary – the coverage types, the limits, the deductibles – was written with a particular vehicle in mind. A car that has quietly fallen outside that boundary is, from the insurer’s point of view, a different question than the one the policy was written to answer.

What details are usually listed

The exact layout varies by insurer, but most declarations pages include some version of the following for each vehicle on the policy:

• Year, make, and model. The basic identity of the car – for example, the model year and manufacturer name that determine which safety and repair-cost data the insurer used when pricing the policy.
• Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). A unique string of characters specific to that one vehicle, not just the model line. This is the detail insurers rely on most heavily, because trim level, factory-installed features, and even the plant where the car was built can all be encoded in it.
• Body style or trim. A base model and a fully-loaded version of the same car can have different repair costs and different safety ratings, which can affect both pricing and, in some cases, how a claim is evaluated.
• Primary use. Whether the vehicle is used for commuting, pleasure driving, business errands, or something like rideshare or delivery work. This is a classification, not a technicality – it describes the pattern of risk the insurer priced the policy around.
• Garaging address. The location where the vehicle is typically parked overnight. This affects exposure to theft, weather damage, and regional accident patterns, and it is often different from your mailing address if you’ve moved or if the car lives at a second location.
• Lienholder or leaseholder information. If the car is financed or leased, the declarations page usually names the lender or leasing company, since they typically have a financial interest in how claims involving that vehicle are paid.
• Listed drivers. Not part of the vehicle description itself, but usually shown alongside it, and worth checking at the same time since household changes affect both.

Each of these details exists because it answers a question the insurer needed answered before agreeing to the terms on the page. None of them are decorative.

How a mismatch can affect coverage

Most mismatches between the declarations page and reality fall into a handful of common patterns. None of them are exotic – they’re the ordinary byproduct of life moving faster than paperwork.

A car that’s been replaced

You traded in the sedan for an SUV, or sold the old car to a family member and bought something newer. If the policy was never updated, it may still be describing a vehicle you no longer own, while the car you’re actually driving has no described listing at all. Some insurers extend a short window of automatic coverage for a newly acquired vehicle under certain conditions, but that window is limited and depends on the specifics of your policy – it is not a substitute for updating the declarations page, and it is worth confirming with your insurer rather than assuming it applies to your situation.

A VIN or trim that doesn’t match

Clerical errors happen at the point of sale or during a policy renewal – a digit transposed in the VIN, or a base trim listed when you actually have the upgraded version with different safety equipment. These errors don’t necessarily block a claim, but they can slow down the verification process, since the adjuster now has to reconcile what’s on paper with what’s in front of them.

A garaging address that’s out of date

If you’ve moved, especially across city or state lines, and the garaging address wasn’t updated, your premium may have been calculated using a location that no longer reflects where the car actually sits overnight. This is a pricing issue as much as a coverage issue, and insurers generally want to know about a move regardless of whether it changes your rate.

A change in how the car is actually used

The primary-use classification on the declarations page describes a pattern, not a single trip. A car listed for pleasure use that has gradually become your daily commute vehicle, or one that’s started being used regularly for a food-delivery or rideshare app, no longer matches its own description. Personal auto policies are typically built around personal use, and regular commercial-style use of the vehicle can fall outside what the policy was written to cover. This is one of the more consequential mismatches, because it isn’t just a data entry issue – it reflects an actual change in the risk the insurer is being asked to take on.

A lienholder that’s missing or outdated

If you refinanced the loan, paid it off, or switched leasing companies and the declarations page still names the old lender, claim payments involving vehicle damage may be directed incorrectly, or the process of releasing funds may take longer while the right party is identified.

In each of these situations, the practical effect is rarely an automatic denial. What tends to happen instead is friction: extra verification steps, requests for additional documentation, delays while the insurer confirms what changed and when. Whether a mismatch has any bearing on a specific claim depends on the terms of your particular policy and the nature of the discrepancy, which is exactly why it’s worth resolving before you need to file one.

How to confirm what’s on file

Checking the declarations page against reality takes a few minutes and doesn’t require calling anyone if you don’t want to. A few practical steps:

1. Pull your most recent declarations page. This is usually available as a PDF through your insurer’s online account or app, and it’s also mailed or emailed at each renewal. Make sure you’re looking at the current version, not an old copy saved from a previous year.
2. Compare the VIN character by character. Your car’s VIN is stamped on a plate visible through the windshield near the dashboard on the driver’s side, and it’s also printed on your registration and insurance card. Read it slowly against the declarations page rather than skimming – transposed digits are easy to miss at a glance.
3. Check the garaging address. Confirm it matches where the car is actually kept most nights, not necessarily your mailing address if those differ.
4. Reread the primary-use description. Ask yourself honestly whether the car is still being used the way it’s described – especially if your commute, job, or side work has changed recently.
5. Confirm the lienholder if the car is financed or leased. Compare the name on the declarations page to your most recent loan or lease statement.
6. Review the listed drivers. Anyone who regularly drives the car – a spouse, a teenager who’s started driving, a roommate – should generally appear here, since this list is closely tied to how the vehicle coverage was priced.

If anything looks off, the fix is usually a short conversation with your insurer or agent rather than a formal dispute. Updating a declarations page is a routine administrative request, not an admission that something has gone wrong. Insurers expect vehicles, addresses, and usage patterns to change over time, and they have a standard process for updating the file to match. The only real risk lies in not making that call – in assuming the page is accurate simply because no one has mentioned otherwise.

A useful habit is to treat the declarations page the way you’d treat a car’s registration: something to glance at once a year, ideally at renewal, rather than something you set once and forget. It takes only a few minutes, and it’s a far calmer time to catch a mismatch than in the middle of sorting out what happened after a collision.

Pull out your declarations page – the summary sheet at the front of your policy packet, usually one or two pages – and look at the section labeled “coverages” or “premium breakdown.” If you have physical damage coverage on your vehicle, you may notice the word “deductible” appears more than once, each time next to a different dollar figure. This is not a printing error, and it is not a sign that your insurer is trying to confuse you. It reflects the fact that your policy is really several distinct coverages bundled under one contract, and each one can be priced and structured on its own terms.

Why some policies list more than one deductible

A deductible is the amount you agree to pay out of pocket before your insurer contributes to a covered loss. It exists on coverages where the size of the loss is variable and something the policyholder can influence to some degree – mainly the coverages that pay to repair or replace your own car. Deductibles generally do not apply to liability coverage, which pays for injuries or damage you cause to others, because that coverage is not about repairing your own property.

Your policy likely bundles together several coverages that behave differently:

• Liability coverage (bodily injury and property damage to others) – no deductible
• Collision coverage – typically has its own deductible
• Comprehensive coverage – typically has its own separate deductible
• Optional add-ons like rental reimbursement or roadside assistance – structured differently, sometimes with caps rather than deductibles

Because collision and comprehensive are legally and actuarially treated as separate coverages, each one carries its own deductible line on the declarations page, and insurers allow you to set them independently rather than forcing you to choose one number for both.

Comprehensive vs collision deductibles

The two deductibles you’re most likely to see side by side belong to comprehensive and collision coverage. They sound similar and are often purchased as a pair, but they respond to different kinds of events.

Collision coverage pays for damage to your car that results from it hitting, or being hit by, another vehicle or object – a crash with another car, sliding into a guardrail, hitting a mailbox while backing out of a driveway. The common thread is that your car was in motion and made contact with something.

Comprehensive coverage (sometimes called “other than collision” in policy language) pays for damage from causes not involving a collision: theft, vandalism, fire, a tree limb falling on the car, hail, flooding, or a deer running into your path. Despite the name, comprehensive is not a catch-all for every possible loss – it specifically covers the category of non-collision events your policy defines.

Because these two coverages respond to different risks, insurers price them separately, and you’re generally allowed to select a different deductible for each. It’s common, for example, to see a lower deductible for comprehensive claims and a higher one for collision claims, or vice versa, depending on how a policyholder weighed cost against risk when the policy was set up.

How to tell which deductible applies to which claim

When damage happens, the deductible that applies depends on how the loss is classified, not on which number is smaller or which one you’d prefer. A few practical ways to sort this out:

• Read the declarations page labels carefully. Most insurers list the deductibles right next to the coverage name – “Comprehensive Deductible: [amount]” and “Collision Deductible: [amount]” as separate lines. If your page only shows one deductible amount, it may mean you only carry one of the two coverages, or that your insurer uses a single combined deductible – worth confirming rather than assuming.
• Think about what caused the damage, not just what the damage looks like. A cracked windshield from a rock kicked up by a truck is comprehensive. A cracked windshield from swerving into a tree is collision. The visible damage can look identical; the cause determines the coverage.
• When a claim involves both categories, insurers sort it out during the claims process. If you swerve to avoid an animal (comprehensive-type event) and then hit a fence (collision-type event), the adjuster handling your claim will determine how the loss is classified and which deductible or deductibles apply. This is one of the reasons that filing a claim promptly and describing the sequence of events accurately matters – the classification is based on what happened, not on how you’d like it categorized.
• Check for special deductible waivers. Many policies waive the comprehensive deductible specifically for glass repair, since chip repair is inexpensive and insurers want to encourage small fixes before a crack spreads. If your policy has this feature, it will usually be noted separately, sometimes as a “glass deductible” or “full glass coverage” endorsement.

If you’re ever unsure which deductible will apply to a specific incident before you file, your insurer’s claims department or your agent can generally tell you how a described scenario would be classified. This is worth doing before a repair estimate is written, since it affects what you’ll be asked to pay upfront.

Why matching deductibles isn’t required

Some drivers assume their comprehensive and collision deductibles must be the same number, since both coverages deal with damage to the same car. They don’t have to match, and insurers don’t typically require it. A few reasons this flexibility exists:

• The coverages carry different risk profiles. Comprehensive claims – hail, theft, falling objects – are often smaller in dollar terms and less within the driver’s control. Collision claims tend to correlate more with driving behavior and traffic exposure. Insurers price and structure them separately because the underlying risk is different.
• It lets you tailor cost to your own risk tolerance. A driver who parks on the street in an area with frequent break-ins or severe hail might choose a lower comprehensive deductible, accepting a higher premium for that coverage in exchange for less out-of-pocket exposure on the claims that worry them most. The same driver might set a higher collision deductible if they consider themselves a low-risk driver and want to save on that portion of the premium.
• Lowering your out-of-pocket cost on one coverage generally raises the premium tied to that coverage, and raising it lowers that premium – again, independently for each. Because the two deductibles are priced separately, adjusting one doesn’t automatically affect the other.
• State rules generally don’t dictate deductible matching. While states regulate what liability limits must look like at minimum, deductible structure on physical damage coverage is largely a matter of contract between you and your insurer, within the deductible options that insurer offers.

If your declarations page shows two different numbers, that’s typically the result of a choice – either one you made when you set up the policy, one your agent set as a default, or one that carried over from a previous policy term. It’s worth reviewing whether those two numbers still reflect how you’d want to handle a claim today, especially if your circumstances or vehicle have changed since the policy was first written.

A quick way to check your own page

Next time you have your declarations page in hand, look for these things specifically:

• Is there a line for comprehensive coverage, and does it list its own deductible?
• Is there a separate line for collision coverage, with its own deductible?
• Are the two numbers the same or different, and does that match what you remember choosing?
• Is there any note about a glass deductible waiver or other special deductible handling?

None of this requires contacting your insurer to understand – it’s usually printed in plain enough terms once you know what you’re looking for. But if anything is unclear, or if you’re not sure whether you’re even carrying both comprehensive and collision coverage, your agent or insurer’s customer service line can confirm what’s actually on your policy. Knowing the answer before you ever need to file a claim means one less thing to sort out at a moment when you’re already dealing with a damaged car.