What Lansdale Drivers Should Review Before Renewing Their Auto Insurance
Before you renew, you should check these five things on your declarations page. Your tort election; your liability limits; whether you have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage; whether stacking is turned on; and your deductibles. Those five will decide what you actually collect after a crash, and most Pennsylvania drivers have never deliberately chosen any of them.
Renewal is the one moment each year when changing them is easy. We're an independent agency on Sumneytown Pike, and below we walk through what each one does, what Pennsylvania law says about it, and where drivers around here tend to be underinsured without knowing it.
Are you carrying full tort or limited tort?
Pennsylvania is a choice no-fault state, and every policy requires you to elect one of two options. The election is on your declarations page, and it carries more weight than any other line on the document.
Full tort preserves your right to sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering after a crash. Limited tort gives up that right unless your injuries meet the legal definition of serious impairment of body function, and it lowers your premium in exchange. You keep the right to recover economic damages such as medical bills and lost wages either way.
The trap in limited tort is the soft-tissue injury. A crash that produces chronic neck or back pain, but no surgery and no broken bones, is exactly the kind of claim limited tort restricts, and those are common outcomes in ordinary collisions. If you never made an election in writing, Pennsylvania law defaults you to full tort, so check which one your policy actually shows rather than assuming.
Limited tort also binds household members in most circumstances, including children on your policy. That's worth thinking through before you renew a policy you selected years ago to save a few dollars a month.
Are your liability limits still appropriate?
Pennsylvania's minimum requirement is 15/30/5, meaning $15,000 of bodily injury coverage per person, $30,000 per accident, and $5,000 of property damage, plus $5,000 in first-party medical benefits. Those numbers come from the 1984 Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law and haven't been raised since.
They are badly out of date. If you injure two people with combined medical bills of $40,000, a 15/30 policy pays $30,000 and you are personally responsible for the rest. The $5,000 property damage limit is the one that should worry Lansdale drivers most, because the average new vehicle price passed $49,000 in 2026. Rear-ending a new SUV on 309 during a bad merge can produce a repair bill that exhausts your property damage limit several times over.
Liability limits also protect your assets rather than your car. If you own a home in the borough, have equity, or earn a decent income, minimum limits leave everything above them exposed to a judgment. Moving from 15/30/5 to 100/300/100 usually costs far less per month than drivers expect.
Do you have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage?
Pennsylvania doesn't require UM and UIM coverage, but insurers have to offer it, and you can only reject it by signing a written waiver. A lot of drivers signed that waiver years ago without registering what it meant.
Uninsured motorist coverage pays your injuries when the at-fault driver has no insurance or flees the scene. Underinsured motorist coverage fills the gap when the at-fault driver carries Pennsylvania's minimum limits and your injuries cost far more than $15,000. Roughly 11 percent of Pennsylvania drivers were uninsured as of the most recent Insurance Research Council estimate, and a great many of the insured ones carry the state minimum.
This is the coverage that pays you rather than somebody else, which is why it gets cut first when people shop on price. It's also usually inexpensive relative to what it does.
Is stacking turned on or waived?
Stacking is a Pennsylvania feature worth understanding, and it applies when your household insures more than one vehicle. Stacked UM and UIM coverage lets you multiply the limit by the number of vehicles on the policy, so $100,000 of UIM across three cars becomes $300,000 available for a single injury claim.
Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1738, stacked coverage is the statutory default when more than one vehicle is insured. You only lose it if the first named insured signed a valid written waiver rejecting it. Carriers routinely present that waiver at the point of sale because unstacked coverage prices lower, and plenty of people sign it without doing the math.
Pull your declarations page and look for the word stacked or unstacked next to your UM and UIM limits. For a two-car or three-car household in Lansdale, turning stacking back on is often the largest increase in protection available for the smallest increase in premium.
Do your deductibles and physical damage coverages still fit?
Comprehensive and collision are optional once a car is paid off, and that's the right moment to run the math rather than keeping them out of habit. If your vehicle is worth $3,000 and you carry a $1,000 collision deductible, you're insuring $2,000 of value.
On the other side, drivers who bought a new vehicle and never revisited the policy often carry a $500 deductible they'd never actually use for a small claim, since filing a minor claim can affect renewal pricing. Raising a deductible you'd never file below is one of the few ways to cut premium without cutting protection.
Rental reimbursement and roadside assistance are small line items that matter when your car is in the shop for three weeks, which is a realistic timeline given current parts availability. Gap coverage is worth checking if you financed a vehicle recently, because a new car can be worth less than the loan balance for the first two or three years.
What else changes your rate that you should tell us about?
Carriers rate on information that goes stale. A commute that shortened because you started working from home, a teenager who left for college and no longer drives regularly, a vehicle you sold, or an address change within Montgomery County can all move the price.
Discounts also go unclaimed. Good student, defensive driving course completion, multi-policy, paid-in-full, telematics programs, and anti-theft equipment are common ones. Bundling your auto with home insurance is usually the largest single discount available to a homeowner.
Violations and at-fault accidents also age off your record over time. A ticket from four years ago may no longer be rated, and if your carrier hasn't re-run your record, you may be paying for history that no longer counts against you.
When should you shop your policy rather than just renew it?
Renewal increases with no claims and no violations are the clearest signal. Carriers file rate changes across an entire book of business, so your premium can rise because of statewide loss trends rather than anything you did.
Life changes are the other trigger. Adding a teen driver, buying a house, getting married, retiring, or paying off a vehicle all change which carrier prices you best, and carriers weight those factors very differently. If you've been with the same company for more than three or four years without comparing, there's a reasonable chance the market has moved around you.
One caution applies to all of it. A cheaper quote that switched you to limited tort, waived stacking, dropped your UIM, or cut your liability limits is a smaller policy rather than a better price.
Have a local agent review your auto policy before you renew
We're based in Lansdale, and an auto review takes about fifteen minutes with your current declarations page. We'll confirm your tort election, check whether stacking is active, look at your UM and UIM limits, and compare your current carrier against the other companies we represent. If your liability limits are where they should be, an umbrella policy is the inexpensive next layer, and we'll tell you whether it's worth adding for your situation.
Frequently asked questions
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Pennsylvania requires $15,000 of bodily injury liability per person, $30,000 per accident, and $5,000 of property damage liability, plus $5,000 in first-party medical benefits. Those limits date to the 1984 Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law and are low relative to current medical and vehicle repair costs.
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Full tort preserves your right to sue for pain and suffering after a crash, while limited tort gives that up except for serious injuries in exchange for a lower premium. Soft-tissue injuries such as chronic neck and back pain are exactly what limited tort restricts, and those are common in ordinary collisions. Most drivers are better served by full tort.
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Stacking lets a household with multiple insured vehicles multiply its uninsured and underinsured motorist limits by the number of vehicles. Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1738, stacked coverage applies by default unless the first named insured signed a written waiver rejecting it. Check your declarations page for the word stacked or unstacked.
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It isn't required, but insurers must offer it and you can only decline it in writing. Roughly 11 percent of Pennsylvania drivers are uninsured, and many insured drivers carry only the state minimum, so UM and UIM coverage is what pays your own injuries when the at-fault driver can't.
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At every renewal, and any time your situation changes. Adding a driver, buying a home, paying off a vehicle, moving, or changing your commute all affect which carrier prices you best. A renewal increase with no claims or violations on your record is a good reason to compare the market.
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Usually less than drivers expect. The largest share of an auto premium covers the first dollars of protection, so moving from state minimum limits to something like 100/300/100 often costs a modest amount per month while substantially reducing what you'd owe personally after a serious at-fault crash.
