Your compulsory car insurance does not cover you if you are at fault

Article 5 of the consolidated Spanish law that makes insuring every car compulsory: the mandatory cover "shall not extend to the damage caused by the injury or death of the driver of the vehicle that caused the accident". In practice:

1. Crash that is the other driver's fault: their insurer compensates you. That works the way you expect. 2. Crash that is your fault: your policy pays for the other car, pays the pedestrians and pays whoever was travelling with you, including the person sitting right beside you. 3. You get nothing. The only human being the compulsory policy leaves out is you, and only when you are the one who caused the crash. 4. That gap is filled by an optional cover, listed on policies as "driver insurance" or "driver personal accident", with an agreed sum — 30,000, 60,000, 100,000 euros — for death or permanent disability.

Look for those two words in your policy, not for the total price. If they are not there, you already have the opening line of your next call to the insurer: "How much does it cost to add driver cover?"