Do you drive a vehicle? Are you insured? If you are, then you have immediate access to up to $100,000 or sometimes more in incredibly cheap health insurance protection in your vehicle policy that most people don’t have because they simply aren’t aware that it’s available.

For example, I have $100,000 of this coverage for me and every member of my family and it costs me less than $50 a year on my car insurance policy. Everyone who drives or rides in an insured vehicle has this same simple, one-click access to this same level of coverage, but almost 100% of those people actually have only $5000 worth of coverage, not $100,000, because their insurance company isn’t going to tell them about it.

This coverage applies to all costs that I may incur as a result of an auto accident with injuries and a trip to the ER – something experienced by nearly 4 million Americans a year. Over 70% of ER visits as a result of vehicle accidents result in one or more expensive diagnostic tests like an MRI, and it isn’t uncommon for your hospital bill after an auto accident to exceed your health insurance coverage by $50,000 – $100,000.

Who goes to the ER as a result of vehicle trauma? The biggest groups are younger drivers – which means the people who typically have the lowest levels of health insurance coverage, as well as the least ability to pay medical bills that are not covered by whatever health insurance they do happen to have. Literally millions of families have been ruined financially because one of their young adult children has been seriously injured in a car wreck.

Which of these age groups are you in and, even more important if you are a parent, where is your child in this picture? If they are in the 0-15 age group, how many times a week are they in a car with someone else driving? If they are in the 16-24 age group, which has the highest rate of ER admissions from vehicular trauma, how many times a week do they drive, and how many times a week do they ride with someone else in the 16-24 age group driving?

Now take a look at the tests that are routinely administered to people taken to the ER as a result of vehicular trauma. Notice that far more tests are run by the ER for vehicular trama cases that for ALL OTHER kinds of ER admissions.

But even before that, what is your health insurance co-pay for the ambulance? How much is your co-pay for the ER? How much of the cost of the tests that the ER WILL RUN would your health insurance pay? If you are admitted to the hospital, when does your health insurance start paying for your daily charges? How much of the tests and medications you will receive does your insurance pay for? How much of your rehab costs are paid for? How much of your long-term care costs are paid for? How much of your lost wages are paid for? How much of your totaled vehicle does your insurance pay for?

And here’s the kicker. Under ObamaCare the healthiest part of our population, young people in their twenties and thirties, often don’t have health insurance at all because they feel they don’t need it, and yet people this age are the MOST likely to go to the ER for vehicle accident trauma. The secret I’m about to reveal will provide coverage even if a young person don’t have ANY health insurance.

Here is the secret, and it’s an open secret that your insurance company will NEVER reveal to you unless you know exactly what to ask for.

Every vehicle insurance policy issued in the US always has a provision that is usually labeled “Personal Injury Protection” or something very close to that. And every one of those policies ALWAYS has a default value of $5000 for the PIP. Furthermore, that coverage is almost always is the cheapest item in the list of coverages in your vehicle policy as part of your overall coverage.

But here’s the relevant part of the secret. You can raise that PIP amount in almost every case to $100,000 per person per accident for an increase in premium of a couple of bucks – in my case as I said it costs me @ $50 a year more to be insured for $100,000 rather than for the default value of $5000.

And all you have to do is to call your insurance company and ask what the upper limit is for PIP and what the increase in premium would be for that coverage. Then you decide. I think you’ll find that this coverage is a no-brainer.

But here’s the beauty of the PIP coverage – in all the states that I’m aware of this coverage is over and above any other medical/health insurance you have. In other words, if you are injured in a bad auto wreck and your hospital treatment and recovery costs up to $100,000 more than your existing health insurance will cover, or even if you don’t have ANY health insurance – you’re covered up to the limit by the PIP clause in your vehicle insurance policy.

Final hint – in addition to PIP coverage, many auto policies also offer “Medical Coverage”. You can have both PIP and Medical in such policies – the “Medical” covers just the medical costs while the PIP is free to cover everything else related to the accident. And while the “Medical” coverage is a little more expensive than the PIP, it isn’t that much more and it is still WAY cheaper than an equal amount of coverage on any “health insurance” policy.

Big Hint! Auto insurance companies are sneaky. They REALLY REALLY don’t want you to buy this insurance but they are forced to offer it by your State insurance regulators. So you have to check your auto policy every time it renews to make sure your PIP coverage stays at the top limit. I’ve seen my own coverage mysteriously return to the default level of $5000 several times. When I’ve called to reinstate the $100,000 coverage all I’ve gotten is “Oops – we’ll fix that right now” from the company. And I have one of the best companies – USAA. I can’t imagine (well, actually I can) how other companies would act – so keep an close eye on your policy every year at renewal time.