Typically, Full Coverage is meant to represent Liability coverage along with coverage for your car (Physical Damage).

Liability coverage helps protect you from covered damage your car does to others, damage for which you are legally liable and without liability insurance would have to pay out of pocket for damages you cause. In some cases these damages could grow into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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State liability laws differ but the most require Liability coverage of Bodily Injury (BI) Liability and Property Damage (PD) Liability. The purpose of BI and PD is if you are at fault in an accident, your Liability insurance will pay for the bodily injury and property damage expenses caused to others in the accident, including your legal bills.

Bodily Injury coverage pays for medical bills and lost wages of the person you injured. Property Damage covers you if your car damages someone else's property. Usually it is their car, but it could be a fence, a house or any other property damaged in an accident. It also provides you with legal defense if another party files a lawsuit against you.

So Liability covers most accidents that you would be for the damages you cause others. This could be rear-ending a car, sliding on ice and hitting a parked car, backing into someone in a parking lot, hitting a person's mailbox, fence or house - all of these types of accidents would fall under Liability for the person who you damaged to make a claim.

The Physical Damage coverages of Collision and Comprehensive typically make up the rest of a "full coverage" insurance policy. Collision coverage covers damage to your vehicle when your vehicle hits, or is hit by, another vehicle, or other object. This type of physical damage coverage pays to fix your vehicle, less the deductible you choose at the onset of your policy.

Comprehensive coverage covers your vehicle, and sometimes other vehicles you may be driving, for losses resulting from incidents other than collision. The incidents listed on a comprehensive policy typically include your vehicle being stolen, damaged by flood, fire or animals.

So Collision coverage typical covers your car when you hit another car, hit a pole or any other object. If you roll your vehicle down an embankment that is usually classified as upset of the vehicle and also falls under Collision coverage. So when you collide with something or something collides with you, this type of accident would fall under your Collision coverage.

Comprehensive is also sometimes called "Other than Collision" or OTC because it covers those items that are not covered by your Collision coverage. Loss caused by missiles, falling objects, fire, theft or larceny, explosion, earthquake, windstorm, hail, water, flood, malicious mischief or vandalism, riot or civil commotion, colliding with a bird or animal, or breakage of glass are other than collision losses and thus claims for these incidents would fall under your Comprehensive coverage.

If your car is in an accident with a deer, dog or other animal this would fall under Comprehensive coverage. If during a windstorm a branch falls on your car and damages it than it be a Comprehensive claim as would hail damage.

To find out what accidents each type of coverage on your "full coverage" car insurance policy covers read through your policy and speak to your agent for clarification since policy terms do differ as do state laws regarding insurance coverages.

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