Why buy insurance?

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Broomstick
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Post by Broomstick »

Justforfun000 wrote:Bu 10 years is a VERY long time, and I don't have an objection to the rising rates you would pay, it's the exorbitant rise that I object against. If I had two accidents within those ten years and lets say one was a minor fender bump costing $500, and the second was a bit more serious. Maybe the car slid on ice and sideswiped another car. So the total cost was $3500.

That's $4000 damage the insurance company pays. Per the examples I gave before, I could easily pay more then THREE TIMES that much back to the insurance company before my rates go back to a reasonable level. What the fuck kind of 'insurance' is that?
Buy a policy with a larger deductible so you assume more of the risk and your premiums will drop. My deductible is $1,500. If, for example, I slid on some ice and bumped into a fencepost causing $500 I wouldn't even report it to my insurance company, I'd just pay to fix it out of my own pocket. If it was a traffic-accident "fender-bender" where I must report it, well, yes, the insurance company would know about it (and that might affect my rates) but they wouldn't lose money on me since I would, with that deductible, be paying for all repairs. My rates might go up, but not as much since I am still assuming greater than average "exposure".
Sometimes people have bad luck and accidents happen.
I agree. I even said so before - anyone can fuck up. It only takes a moment's inattention. Once is an oops. Twice is more ominous.
You try your best to minimize the chances, but we're human and circumstances can sometimes throw you a curve ball. Dogs can run in front of your car resulting in you swerving to avoid them and hitting another car.
Run over the dog. I mean, don't do it deliberately but if you can't avoid the dog without hitting another car I'm sorry, the dog loses. Not only is that preferable from a standpoint of liability, but it's safer FOR YOU to hit a relatively soft object like a dog than a relatively hard object like a car - and even worse if the other car is moving in a direction opposite yours.
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aerius
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Post by aerius »

99.99% of accidents are 100% avoidable. They're not accidents, they're the result of careless stupid asshole driving.

Exhibit A
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Note the following distance of the drivers in the left lane, if any of the vehicles spin out, the ones behind them are totally fucked as there's no way in hell they're stopping in time. It's snowing, the roads are crap, and the morons are leaving around 3-4 car lengths between themselves. Now look at my lane, you can fit a couple tractor trailers in the space between me and the guy in front of me, if he spins out I have more than enough room to stop, make a lane change, or otherwise avoid hitting him.

Drive smart and it'll be a fluke if you get a single at-fault accident in your entire life. Drive like the typical idiot on our roads and regular at-fault "accidents" are guaranteed.
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Post by Justforfun000 »

Buy a policy with a larger deductible so you assume more of the risk and your premiums will drop. My deductible is $1,500. If, for example, I slid on some ice and bumped into a fencepost causing $500 I wouldn't even report it to my insurance company, I'd just pay to fix it out of my own pocket.
Totally agree with this. It really isn't worth having anything to do with insurance unless you absolutely have to.

Run over the dog. I mean, don't do it deliberately but if you can't avoid the dog without hitting another car I'm sorry, the dog loses. Not only is that preferable from a standpoint of liability, but it's safer FOR YOU to hit a relatively soft object like a dog than a relatively hard object like a car - and even worse if the other car is moving in a direction opposite yours.
Ack. I don't think I could do that. The poor thing. :cry:


Drive smart and it'll be a fluke if you get a single at-fault accident in your entire life. Drive like the typical idiot on our roads and regular at-fault "accidents" are guaranteed.
Well you're probably right in the main...but I still think they bilk people too much. Particularly new drivers. I don't think it's fair to be considered guilty until proven innocent. They could at LEAST nail them hard for one at fault if they get it within the first 5 years of driving or so. that'd be a little more fair then charging them an arm and a leg the instant they begin.
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Post by Broomstick »

Justforfun000 wrote:
Run over the dog. I mean, don't do it deliberately but if you can't avoid the dog without hitting another car I'm sorry, the dog loses. Not only is that preferable from a standpoint of liability, but it's safer FOR YOU to hit a relatively soft object like a dog than a relatively hard object like a car - and even worse if the other car is moving in a direction opposite yours.
Ack. I don't think I could do that. The poor thing. :cry:
Well, I wouldn't be happy about it, but if it's me or the dog...

Let's be honest here - if it was a choice between me and YOU I'd be inclined to favor me. Nothing personal, it's just that I really, really like me. So far, I've squashed two squirrels, but I'm just not going to risk Severe Bodily Harm to preserve the life of an animal.
Particularly new drivers. I don't think it's fair to be considered guilty until proven innocent.
It's based on statistics - new drivers, due to inexperience (and often with youth, too) are MUCH more likely to get into an accident than a mature, experienced driver. If you're a good driver you're rewarded by reduced premiums after a few years. If you don't learn --- you pay.

Would it help you to know that insurance for pilots is the same? Below a certain number of hours you pay more, if you're low-time in a type of aircraft you pay more, and if you fly without incident after a couple of years you are rewarded with lower premiums. It's not just cars that this applies to.
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Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

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Post by Lusankya »

I think there are even some insurance companies over here who were offering discounted insurance to young female drivers. Young male drivers tend to cost the insurance company more on average, so they don't get the discounted rates.

The way I see it, you're paying the insurance company to take a risk on you. The greater the risk category you fall into, the more risk the insurance company is taking and the more you have to pay. Sure, it might seem unfair, but it's generally based on risk statistics, which is fair enough.


(Note that I'm talking in a non-US context in which insurance covers things which are "optional" like cars and boats and Playstations. The fact that you don't need these things prevents the companies from gouging you too much. )
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Justforfun000
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Post by Justforfun000 »

Broomstick Wrote:
Let's be honest here - if it was a choice between me and YOU I'd be inclined to favor me. Nothing personal, it's just that I really, really like me.
LOL. I understand and agree. I would hate to have to make the choice of course, but I love my life too. :P
It's based on statistics - new drivers, due to inexperience (and often with youth, too) are MUCH more likely to get into an accident than a mature, experienced driver. If you're a good driver you're rewarded by reduced premiums after a few years. If you don't learn --- you pay.
I know this of course. But the thing that galls me is that you don't have a CHOICE. If it was only recommended but not mandatory to have a company insure you then it'd be different to me. I feel that you should have the right to say "Well then fuck you if you want to gouge me, I'll take the risk on myself and be on the hook if there is an accident." The fact that they take this option away is where I have a problem. I mean you can cause any human being serious harm or death by many irresponsible or careless acts that have nothing to do with driving, but they specialize this so specifically that it's become a racket.

Again I am not defending bad drivers against being punished, but I strongly assert that people NOT deserving of the exorbitant premiums and especially the length of terms they are penalized end up FAR overcharging an individual person in regards to their actual cost of accident. That is absolutely ridiculous to me and nothing is going to change my mind towards thinking it's ok to do this as par for the course when the grand majority of accidents are thankfully not fatal or necessarily in the $10.000+ range of cost. But every single person dinged for these accidents pay that easily in the years of huge premiums. I just cannot condone that. That's not insurance, that's highway robbery.
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Post by Lusankya »

Justforfun000 wrote:I know this of course. But the thing that galls me is that you don't have a CHOICE. If it was only recommended but not mandatory to have a company insure you then it'd be different to me.
What the hell? You get forced to have car insurance in America? Over here the only mandatory car insurance is 3rd party bodily, which you pay as part of your registration, and since it's a state thing, the insurance companies can't gouge you for it.
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Post by PeZook »

Civil Liability insurance is mandatory over here. The idea is that if you cause an accident, the other guy can be sure his damage is covered by your insurance.

However, there's nothing as extreme as the 7 year thing in motion.

Rates generally go like this: if you drive without accident for a year, you get 10% off each year, up to a maximum of around 60% (varies with insurer) and various other perks.

Cause an accident, though, and you lose all discounts.

Cause an accident without a discount, and you get a 20% hike. It disappears after a year of accien

It's pretty expensive that way, but fair IMHO.
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Post by Broomstick »

Lusankya wrote:
Justforfun000 wrote:I know this of course. But the thing that galls me is that you don't have a CHOICE. If it was only recommended but not mandatory to have a company insure you then it'd be different to me.
What the hell? You get forced to have car insurance in America?
Oh, worse than that - I'm in the US and JustForFun is in Canada. It is, apparently, a continent-wide practice (well, not sure about Mexico).

It wasn't always that way, but too many irresponsible drivers, as least in the US, led to the current state of affairs as a "fix" by legislators. I remember when auto insurance was optional in some US states (might even still be the case in 1 or 2, I don't keep track of all 50), but it was a long time ago.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
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Justforfun000
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Post by Justforfun000 »

However, there's nothing as extreme as the 7 year thing in motion.

Rates generally go like this: if you drive without accident for a year, you get 10% off each year, up to a maximum of around 60% (varies with insurer) and various other perks.

Cause an accident, though, and you lose all discounts.

Cause an accident without a discount, and you get a 20% hike. It disappears after a year of accien

It's pretty expensive that way, but fair IMHO.
I think that sounds fairer. I'd have to know how the money works out in math. If you don't end up paying many thousands a year for lots of years then in general I would say yes.

See what happened to me way back when is an example of how in my opinion I got screwed. I had one personal at fault accident. At least it was automatically classed as that. I was driving home when we were hit by an extremely windy storm and at one point a tremendous gust shoved my car to the right suddenly after just making a right turn up a small street. It hit the beginning of the curb and the car flipped on it's side. It happened so fast I still don't how it was possible. The cop who came made me blow a breathalyzer and thankfully I didn't have anything to drink. He was probably suspicious how it happened. I was just as baffled.

So in any event, there was some moderate damage costing a few thousand I believe. Any accident just involving your own vehicle is automatically considered "your fault". So that was one and I believe they still raised the rates but can't remember to what.

A year later someone I was dating "borrowed" my car, and I use that loosely because I was actually being extorted and threatened with being outed by this individual. Very bad scene I endured for years, but in any event at times he would take my car even without my express permission. In retrospect I should have used that to charge him, but oh well. In any event it doesn't really matter because they fall under your insurance unless you DO charge them, so when he had a small accident, it was attributed to me.

The disgusting part of this is he just bumped a woman's bumper. The driver said it was a tap, no damage to the car, but her passenger complained. The bitch pulled the "Oh my neck" bullshit and put through a claim against my insurance for chiropractic and all the other dressed up jazz. I even spoke to the lady driver who basically admitted her friend was just taking advantage of the situation, but what the hell can you do? :roll:

So there I was with 2 "at-fault" accidents, and two would show for 6 years. My insurance was about $277 a month for all that time. Oh the last year when only 1 showed it dropped down to about $180 or so I believe..

So all together I paid a good $18,000 in car insurance for 6 years. Does anyone here think that's even REMOTELY fair based on not only circumstance of accidents but the actual cost incurred by the insurance company? They made a huge fucking profit off me. So besides all of the people who are paying premiums that never make claims, they get above and beyond that by extorting far more then the grand majority of claims cost them. Now do some of you understand why I think it's a rip off racket?
You have to realize that most Christian "moral values" behaviour is not really about "protecting" anyone; it's about their desire to send a continual stream of messages of condemnation towards people whose existence offends them. - Darth Wong alias Mike Wong

"There is nothing wrong with being ignorant. However, there is something very wrong with not choosing to exchange ignorance for knowledge when the opportunity presents itself."
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Post by Aaron »

Justforfun000 wrote:
Ack. I don't think I could do that. The poor thing. :cry:
They beat this into your head on every drivers course I've been on (6), it's an animal better to kill it than another human. You see people all the time swerving into oncoming traffic to avoid a squirrel. I don't know what the roads are like in TO but I've had to hit several raccoons and my roomate hit a huge turtle because the alternative was death by tractor-trailer.
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