kimilseung

A couple of years ago I got hit by a student with all their worldly possessions piled up in the back of their car, so they did not see me when they pulled out. They were insured but denied any responsibility. I had a $500.00 deductible and no hire car.

This morning my wife got rear-ended by an uninsured driver, I dreaded what the cost would be, it turns out, under the same policy the deductible is $100 with a hire car.

Yay uninsured drivers! but is this the normal way of dealing with these things on other peoples policies?

scrubbedexpat099

Blood stone?

Speedwell

kimilseung, it's been several years and two cars since an uninsured Mexican with a fake driving license caused an accident I was involved in, but I'm still with the same insurance company and on the same policy. Since I never opt out of uninsured motorist coverage, I happened to have been covered, and the insurance company was lovely. I think my deductible was 250 that time, but well worth it as the repairs cost a bundle and they paid for a rental car for the 30 days it took to get everything sorted.

The cheapest, most basic policies don't have uninsured motorist coverage in many states. Recipe for disaster, in my opinion. I get that coverage even if my cash flow is so poor that I have to give up something else to get it.

Bink

I agree it sucks.

My car was hit in a car park yesterday by a truck with dealer (temp) plates (he drove off quickly and no one was able to get the license). Fortunately no significant damage to my car but he did a fair amount of damage to the SUV he was parked next to (I was parked behind and opposite the truck with the road round the car park between us). I was sat getting frozen yoghurt with my wife and son and saw it happen but couldn't get outside before he had driven off.

I felt really sorry for the lady in the SUV, she didn't know and when she got in her car I went out and pointed it out to her. He dented/scratched 3 panels and her rear alloy wheel. What a jackass. Of course that's why insurance premiums are so high round here because of idiots like this.

kimilseung

Of course, extra coverage, still seems odd that I am better off getting hit by an uninsured driver, I have no idea about the policy as I just went along with what the wife had before I came over, added me and a new car on to it, but she doesn't seem to know what the details are either. Its all gets done over the phone so I have never seen a policy.

scrubbedexpat099

You would have had one in your mail.

Just Jenney

If your insurance is with a major company (Progressive, State Farm, etc), they probably have an online tool where you can tweak your deductibles and see how it affects your bottom line.

For years I followed the "get the biggest deductibles you can afford" approach in order to keep my insurance rates as low as possible. This approach was fine until Mark's car was damaged in a parking lot by a hit-and-run driver. Our insurance company, USAA, categorized it as a collision, for which we had a $1,000 deductible. Because the damage was superficial, it wasn't worth it to fork out $1,000 for the deductible (which we couldn't easily afford anyway) and we never pursued it.

(It wasn't until a year later that my brother, who worked as a Progressive claims adjuster for several years, told me that he felt it should have been put in the uninsured motorist category, and our policy only required a $200 deductible for that. Mark and I had split up by that point so it was up to him whether to pursue it; he never did.)

Because of that situation, and also because I am now single again, living on one income and owning a 12-year-old car, I went into USAA's website and used their "Change Coverages and Features" tool. It let me play around with hypothetical options, including increased/decreased coverage AND deductible amounts, and then calculated a quote depending on those hypotheticals.

I ended up drastically slashing all of my deductibles -- they now range from $100-$200 per category -- but my premium only increased by $6/month. While that means I'm paying $72/year more for my insurance than before, I have peace of mind knowing that I'll be able to afford the deductibles should something happen to me. I had always assumed that I was saving HUNDREDS (plural) per year by having super-high deductibles, and I was surprised by how wrong I was!

Now, that's with USAA -- great company. Other insurers may be different. But look into it. If your insurance company doesn't give you the flexibility to adjust your insurance policy to fit your needs, then you might want to look at another insurance company altogether.

~ Jenney

kimilseung

Thanks Jenny, I'll look in to that.

scrubbedexpat099

Did you calculate how much your premiums would go up if you made one or more small claims that were now theoretically possible with the lower deductible?

Uncle_Bob

Why pay for car insurance or health insurance when you can barely pay for the "the every sperm is sacred" family of 8 and get away with it, just let other people pay through inflated premiums, its Americas welfare system

Anyone in a border state knows this.

Just Jenney

No, but since I bought my car back in 2001 I have never filed a claim and I also have a perfect driving record so I'm not too worried about it. *knock wood*

~ Jenney

TimFountain

Totally agree. It's boggles the mind that the insurance companies manage to get away with this.

Here's another one. I fly a plane. If I didn't own a plane but wanted to rent one from a flying school, I am advised that I need renters insurance. It's not that the plane isn't insured (it is insured for both hull loss as well as 3rd party liability) but that the insurance companies are likely to subrogate you for any losses unless you have insurance. This could bankrupt you in a serious case, unless you have no assets and then the insurance will pay out.
So basically you have to buy insurance, on something that is already insured, to stop the insurance company from suing you for their loss.

Oh here's another one. Title insurance. Er Ok, what's that you may ask? Well that would be an insurance you take out (at quite an extortionate rate I may add) to cover you against any and all defects in a property title that may arise after you have purchased a property. But hold on there, don't you do a title search before you buy? But yes of course, in most countries (like the UK) a proper, legal title search is performed you can move forward.
Here in the US the title search is done by an 18 year old intern who googles for 3 minutes. The title insurance is provided 'for your convenience' to help pay for any f'ups that the search may have missed. Sorry but it is a crap way to do things. Why don't titling companies have a general pool of insurance to pay for the 0.00001% of titles that are somehow messed up?

This Forbes article is a great read on why title insurance is a $18B scam http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1113/148.html

Quote:
First American has doubled its prices in a decade, to an average charge of $1,472 per home for a title search and insurance. Meanwhile, thanks to computerized record-keeping, the cost of searching for a home’s ownership records online has fallen to as low as $25. Technology also has helped make mistakes rarer; now only $74 of each policy goes to pay claims–that is, make home buyers with defective deeds whole. That leaves a $1,373 spread for overhead and for profit.

Grr, insurance, grr....

- Tim

kimilseung

Tim that reminds me of China, where some provinces insist that foreign bus travellers get travel insurance (above and beyond their regular travel insurance) in case the bus crashes and the bus company has to pay compensation for their negligence.

It led to one particular crazy situation, where I was refused a bus ticket going in to one of these areas, I asked where I could get the insurance, and was told the name of my destination, and of course I was refused a ticket again when I asked for a ticket to get there. We went around in circles for a while before I gave up at the absurdity of it.

scrubbedexpat099

But none of that answers my comment.

scrubbedexpat099

Sounds like you are not an insured party on the original policy.