Or maybe she just doesn’t have the means to pay for more than minimum insurance. Some people aren’t as fortunate as those of us whining about first world problems in a Tesla forum.
It bugs me a little when their coverage for other people they might affect is less than half what their car costs. I 100% get people that can barely afford this world. They shouldn't be out there forced to get $100k of coverage for someone else's expensive car... but maybe like 2x the value of your car, or 3x or something. You have a cheap used $5k car, sure, get $10k of coverage. You have a brand new $22k car... well now you need to buy $40k or something. Would be really hard to get a system like that in place probably... but man it's frustrating.
To answer why go above minimums... I don't think there really is any reason, if you're low income without assets. If you have a $15k car and live in an apartment and make $16/hr... there is zero reason to go above. If you make $75k a year and have a decently expensive car and house and some money in savings... well, someone is likely to go after you personally and instead of having an insurance company standing in-between, it's you vs the other company.
I highly doubt State Farm will go after them in the long run... maybe scare them a bit by starting it but then dropping it once they realize there isn't much to go after. Being garnished $40 a week for five years or something would seriously suck for someone low income... but I'm not sure State Farm would go through the effort for that amount... and I'm not sure where the limit is on what courts will award when someone is already making low income. Then the person also could just move back in with parents or a friend or something, drop their hours to 20 a week since they're "working to have it taken away" and just barely have enough for food, cell phone, and their car and maybe the garnishment is put on pause because their income is so low or something.
That's why you have under/uninsured coverage, I specifically made sure I carried above the value of my Tesla (at the time $72k, I have $100k coverage because I think my options were $50k or $100k) so I'll be covered... it just make me damn nervous becoming "expensive" for my insurance company. Even if they say *this* won't increase my rates... you have no idea on the backend what kind of stuff goes into the equation to determine rates. Sure, the payout might not factor in, but being in an accident that was deemed "serious" or something by total dollar value of repair might then give me a modifier that makes me slightly more risky or something and then THAT increases rates. State Farm could say "well it wasn't us paying out that made the rates go up, we're here for you and that's why you're covered!" but instead "well we had a report of $25k of repairs and costs on a vehicle that cost $55k (or whatever the Model Y P is down to now) and we deem that as a serious accident, statistically even if it's not your fault we find people that have been in pervious accidents are more likely to be in a future accident blah blah blah..."
I was hoping to keep as much as possible off my record with State Farm and channeled directly through the other parties insurance. State Farm was aware I was involved in one, but I would be totally happy if they thought it was slight paint damage to the fender or something and I blew it off, etc.
Anyway, I'm just happy my car is in the shop. I'm happy the shop is going to try to include the PPF in their estimate which makes it seem less of an optional accessory, and I'm happy 100% of my initial non-shitbox rental has been covered! Progress... now I wonder if I still try to go after a DV claim... I know this will kill my trade in (not that I plan to trade in, next on my list is a house and I need to stop playing the car game and keep switching vehicles!), but it still hurts knowing I might be 40% lower in value than anyone else with a vehicle similar to mine that is trading in...