Auto Insurance Coverage - Take the Chance to Save Money or No?
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I take high deductibles on collision and comprehensive. My way of gambling, and so far I am ahead. How many gamblers can say that?
Well on collision, you're betting on yourself to be a good driver and if you have an accident, hopefully it's not your fault. Seems like a reasonable gamble.
Comprehensive is gambling that a hurricane or tornado or something won't come by and destroy your car. That is not a gamble I'd be thrilled to take.
Well on collision, you're betting on yourself to be a good driver and if you have an accident, hopefully it's not your fault. Seems like a reasonable gamble.
Comprehensive is gambling that a hurricane or tornado or something won't come by and destroy your car. That is not a gamble I'd be thrilled to take.
Thankfully only a small percentage of the population will ever have to deal with a hurricane or tornado. But most of us have to at least be wary of car theft, vandalism and trees falling. Not to mention rocks bouncing along the road breaking windshields, hailstorms or the occasional collision with a large mammal on the road. Those are what most comp claims are caused by, not hurricanes or tornadoes.
As for gambling you won't be at fault for an accident, stuff happens. Road conditions get bad, your tire blows out, a car suddenly brakes in front of you, you let your family member or friend drive your car and they aren't quite as careful as you...stuff happens.
Just do the math and make a decision. Take about what your car is worth, usually somewhere around what Edmunds or Blue Book call a private party value, more than wholesale, but less than dealer retail. Subtract out your deductible. Now look at your premium notice and figure out what your comp and collision coverage cost on a per month basis (remember your notice is a 6 or 12 month amount). Take the payout amount (value less deductible) and divide that by the monthly cost. That gives you in months your breakeven point. That is about the timeframe you are betting you will have an accident. For people with good credit it often is up in the 8 to 10 year timeframe, which is a pretty good deal because stuff happens and of course not all payouts are totaled cars. When I see bad credit that can often be a 3 year timeframe, even though bad credit doesn't necessarily mean accident prone. The irony of this is the people with bad credit are stuck because if they lost their vehicle in an at fault accident, they would be hard pressed to get another without a settlement. The people with good credit usually can easily finance another at a good rate or have the reserves to buy another.
For that live in states with significant illegal immigrant populations it's especially important...
Illegal immigrants are the safest, most conscientious drivers in America. They can't afford the cost of getting pulled over for the slightest infraction, and they drive as if their status depended on it, because it does. For you, failing to signal a lane change can cost you a few minutes showing papers and at worst a $50 fine. For them, the cost is the entire livelihood of their extended family for the rest of their life. Of course, they are also much, much less likely to sue you, further reducing your exposure to liability
Mexicans DO know how to drive cars, safely in chaotic and unpredictable conditions like Tijuana and Juarez, and DO try to avoid wrecking their cars, which cost (to them) a lot of money.
In fact, Texas and Arizona, with all their illegals, have fewer traffic fatalities per capita than Maine and Iowa and 20 other states (almost all of them red states). http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...accidents?lite
Illegal immigrants are the safest, most conscientious drivers in America. They can't afford the cost of getting pulled over for the slightest infraction, and they drive as if their status depended on it, because it does. For you, failing to signal a lane change can cost you a few minutes showing papers and at worst a $50 fine. For them, the cost is the entire livelihood of their extended family for the rest of their life. Of course, they are also much, much less likely to sue you, further reducing your exposure to liability
Mexicans DO know how to drive cars, safely in chaotic and unpredictable conditions like Tijuana and Juarez, and DO try to avoid wrecking their cars, which cost (to them) a lot of money.
But at the end of the day, they still don't have insurance at a much higher rate than legal immigrants or citizens. And even the safest, most conscientious drivers (and I'd argue that last point most definitely) cause accidents.
I switched to $1M umbrella after seeing accidents that involved multi-vehicles on daily basis. I am a very safe driver but you don't have to be the main culprit to face the music. I feel much better now.
6. Comprehensive Insurance. Protects you if your car is damaged in a storm, a natural disaster, or was damaged because someone broke into it. Again, never have a deductible lower than $500.
Considering it was all of $26 a year to lower to my comprehensive deductible to $0, and my car has been broken into twice so far, I'd say that "never have a deductible lower than $500" is a pretty silly blanket statement to throw around.
Well on collision, you're betting on yourself to be a good driver and if you have an accident, hopefully it's not your fault. Seems like a reasonable gamble.
Comprehensive is gambling that a hurricane or tornado or something won't come by and destroy your car. That is not a gamble I'd be thrilled to take.
Depends where you live. Of course, that's taken into account. Really, you're gambling on the actuaries being smarter than you are. Insurance is paying someone to cover risk for you. They're not going to do it for free. A tree limb could fall on my car in a freak accident, but it's extremely unlikely. I can't say I personally know anyone who has ever had a tree fall on their car. I do know of instances where organizations have taken trees out of parking lots for liability reasons (more personal injury), but that's because we're part of the Ninth Circuit and Acts of God don't exist here.
Plus, you're just self-insuring. If a tree fell on my car and totaled it, I would not be happy. But I could absorb an $8-10k hit from an incredibly unlikely event. Given the cost of comp ~$500/year, it seems a reasonable risk to take and one that won't ruin me if I bet wrong.
I switched to $1M umbrella after seeing accidents that involved multi-vehicles on daily basis. I am a very safe driver but you don't have to be the main culprit to face the music. I feel much better now.
Been there, done that. I went out and increased my policy from 100/300 to 300/1000k after it happened. It worked out cheaper to increase liability on car first in one of those weird cosmic turns of event. Also went with a $1M umbrella. I thought about going higher, actually, but my insurer specializes more in low and moderate-income insurance rather than high-income. It was four times as expensive for 2M coverage as 1M... not many people buy more than 1M who aren't high-income, less pool to spread the risk over, higher premiums.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.