As summer winds down into fall, you should keep this story in mind before you opt out of collision coverage. One autumn afternoon, a pregnant woman was driving her mother and her two young children to the store. She stopped at a stop sign, waited for her turn to go, and then entered the intersection.

A teenage driver blew through the stop sign and smashed into the side of her minivan. Luckily, nobody was injured, but the minivan was totaled. Bystanders had to push it out of the middle of the intersection just so traffic could pass.

The accident was witnessed from multiple points of view. The teenage driver was wholly responsible. Yet, the teenager was able to drive away, while the pregnant woman’s minivan had to be junked. The officer looked the other way when a friend drove them away with the woman and her mother holding the children on their laps, because the car seats they’d had with them were built into the seats of the minivan.

The real shock came later. The other driver’s insurance company took four months to give the woman the funds to replace her minivan, but only covered six weeks of car rental services. If she’d carried collision insurance, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But she’d opted to save money by carrying liability-only. For ten weeks, she went without a vehicle because of a careless teenage driver!

You may think liability insurance and responsible driving are enough to protect your vehicle, but you do not want to discover the inconvenience of liability-only coverage the hard way just to save a few bucks. Collision coverage may cost you as little as $7 more per month on an older vehicle. If you have the savings necessary to replace your vehicle out-of-pocket, then it may be smart to opt out of collision coverage.

If you are living paycheck to paycheck and you’re relying on your vehicle to get to work, then you should know that you are risking your financial well-being to save as little as $7 per month. If that’s you, then it’s time to rethink your options before you lose your vehicle through no fault of your own.

Before you choose liability only, think about the many ways this season could be hard on your vehicle. Think about the teenage drivers, homecoming weekend, football season and drivers’ education. Is liability enough coverage to keep your vehicle going?