My Insurance Company

[Beowolf]

Reading Joe's thread reminded of some stuff that is getting its own thread...

First off Joe, it is my business if you decide to flying through the windshield, Whopper in hand. As long as insurance companies continue to operate on the principle of shared responsibility, your injuries, which are statistically more likely to be of higher expense are being paid for by my premiums. So yeah. It is my business.

But this brings about the greater problem. If Joe (and now I'm just using you as an example, nothing personal.) gets a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt, then I want him placed within a different premium/benefit group than I am since I always wear my seatbelt. In reality Joe, I realize that so many partitions between users is unfeasible so unfortunately what I really want is for your premiums to go up and for there to be some standard of accounting to prove that your increased payments are going directly towards paying for accident victims who were also not wearing their seatbelts. (Sorry Joe) Of course, this does happen, but only to an extent as insurance companies realize that if they jack your rates up too high, then God forbid, you may just sell you car and start walking. Now they've lost a customer.

Now for my Big Idea. I've been driving my little Nissan for 7 years now. I bought it new and it cost me $xxx.xx every six months to have it insured (I used "x's" because SWMBO handles the bills and at the moment, I really can't remember what the bill is! :o )Now 7 years later, the car has 167,000 miles on it and they still want the same amount for full coverage, even though the potential payout on the car is 1/5 of what it was new! Shared responsibility my a$$!!!

My idea is an insurance company that adjusts your rates by the current Kelly Blue Book value so that your car insurance is directly linked to the potential payout on your car. The longer you hold onto a car, the cheaper your insurance will get. Now I realize that this only helps "the little guy," but I bet I could find enough little guys to make this work.

Jeff

[Meerkat]

I think you need to review your policy and see if you're not paying too much for an old vehicle. My insurance has gone down with vehicle age, but I look every year.

[Katherine]

You could just switch to the PL/PD that Michigan requires.

[Gary E]

Full coverage??? on a 7 yr old car?????

Why the hell do you do that???
Liability ONLY....

I have always bought insurance based on the bet that I AM A BETTER DRIVER than the insur co thinks.... therefore I never bought collision insur and yes not even on the cars when they were new.

[John Bell]

Most of the exposure your insurer weathers isn't the cost of your car. It the damage you can do to other people's bodies and property that makes insurance cost what it does.

What I do with our cars is that once they depreciate to a certain point, I stop carrying coverage beyond liability and personal injury. I also keep my deductables high, sharing more of the risk with my insurer.

[clancy]

I just got an email from a friend who is staying at his house in Key West for the winter. He told me that I should be expecting a call from his father offering to sell me his car cheap. He's got a five year old Mercedes that looks like it just rolled out of the showroom. His father received a notice from his insurance company stating that they have decdided to drop him as a customer when his policy expires at the end of the month.

The reason being he is 95 years old. Within the past year he was re-tested by the state for his driver's license. He passed the eye test without glasses, and aced both the written and driving tests. The insurance company told him that they don't care what the state says. As far as they are concerned it is time for him to park the car .
His father figures that if he sells the cat to someone he knows then that person can add him as a driver on their policy.

I told me buddy that winter is over and he should hurry home. "My arms are to short to box with your father."

[Bruce Hooke]

I don't have much experience with driving cars that are valuable enough for it to make sense for me to have insurance to cover damage to my own vehicle (so I just carry liability insurance), but it has always been my impression that the portion of the insurance that goes to cover damage to one's own vehicle IS tied to the value of that vehicle. Is this really not the case? If it is I agree that it makes no sense, which leads me to think that there is more to the picture than there first appears to be. If you have them available, I'd recommend looking over your policy for the past 7 years and checking how much they have been charging you for each component of the policy.

[jack grebe]

yep only in america is it illegal to drive without a seatbelt......good thing you don't need a helmet on a motorcycle!

[Beowolf]

......good thing you don't need a helmet on a motorcycle!


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