If you are considering leasing a car you will still need to purchase your own auto insurance policy. When you lease, your vehicle belongs to the lease company. They want to make sure that their investment is covered if something happens to the car. They may also want you to have sufficient liability coverage in case you are at fault in causing an accident. This not only protects you from financial disaster, but it also protects the lease company from financial harm.

So whoever is financing your car will require you to buy both collision and comprehensive coverage for the vehicle. Collision covers damage to the car from an accident with another automobile or object and comprehensive is coverage for losses from something other than a collision with another car or object. They will generally want you to purchase: liability coverage $100,000 per person/$300,000 per occurrence, property liability coverage $50,000 and comprehensive and collision for actual value with no more than $500.00 deductible.

This may be more coverage than you would usually buy, so your insurance expense may be increased. In this case, you would benefit from shopping around to try to get a better rate. Insurance experts say you can nearly always get the higher level of insurance at about the same rate as you are currently paying by getting quotes from a few different insurance companies, seeking out discounts that you qualify for and adjusting your coverage.

In addition to the regular auto insurance, on a leased car, you will have to pay gap insurance. The “gap” is the difference between the amount you owe the leasing company and the amount the insurance company pays out if your car gets totaled. Cars depreciate in value quickly so when a car gets totaled there is usually a gap between the fair market value and the loan amount. The cost of gap insurance is generally rolled into the lease payments. You don’t actually buy a gap policy. Generally, the auto dealer buys a master policy from an insurance company to cover all the cars it leases and charges you for a “gap waiver.” This means that if your leased car is totaled, you won’t have to pay the dealer the gap amount.