When you buy Texas car insurance, you must meet the minimum requirements, but often may benefit more by adding other options for coverage on your policy. For instance, you may want to extend collision coverage beyond $30,000 or include comprehensive coverage for your car. In addition, roadside assistance may be available, as well.
Melissa Rodriguez discovered the value of adding roadside assistance to her Texas car insurance policy late one night when driving from Houston to Austin, which is sometimes a three hour drive (depending on who is driving). It was approaching 11:00 p.m. when she passed what she calls “the middle point of nowhere” only to have a tire blow out on her, the tread falling away, and her car careening off towards the side of the road. Melissa kept things together and stopped the car safely, but her nine-month-old baby who had been asleep in the back woke and began to scream.
“I had included roadside assistance as an option,” she says, “not knowing if I was ever going to use it. That night, I actually didn’t think of it but tried to change the flat. I discovered, though, that I could not get the rims off my tire.” She had a healthy spare, a lift and a crowbar, but she was helpless because she did not have a key. Melissa’s car had a special type of locking hubcap on her tires which prevented her from exposing the bolts that would allow her to remove the destroyed tire. “It was totally frustrating,” she says. “Approaching midnight, my baby would not stop screaming and wanted me to hold her, and I was all alone on a Texas interstate, hoping somebody safe would stop to help.” She attempted to pry the hubcap off with the crow bar, which would mangle it and cause further damage, to no avail.
She remembered the roadside assistance component of her Texas car insurance policy and called the number. A technician came to her aid within 30 minutes, and he had a tool that unlocked the hubcaps from her car tire without destroying it.
“I was so grateful,” she said. “I kept thanking him over and over again, and he kept saying, ‘Just doing my job, ma’am.’ He was wonderful. What a wonderful asset to have as part of my insurance policy.”
Choosing options such as roadside assistance, if available, can certainly add value to your Texas car insurance package, and is well worth investigating and asking about when searching for car insurance that fits your needs, as well as your budget.
