Furious with me and my insurance company

[dspellman1]

Insurance companies have been on a sharp decline for at least 20 yrs . They will take advantage/ rip you off any way they can. In my experience. That’s why I just dropped my workers comp policy

Ouch. I work with life insurance/annuities/Medicare insurance plans/assets under management, etc. Over 150 different companies.
Sorry -- no home/auto/workers comp.

There are definitely policies I won't sell to anyone, and I've found that some companies have really good polices in one area and are absolutely clueless in others.

But there are also clients who don't ask the right questions and who never read the information to see what they're getting into. A good agent will help you with some of that, but there's definitely a level of responsibility that falls to the client.

 

[dspellman1]

I have two trucks.
I'm the only driver listed for each.
I don't understand why I have to pay for insurance on both autos.
I can only drive one at a time.

I get it. But insurance follows the vehicle, not the driver. That's a basic axiom of auto insurance, particularly liability. If you're out driving one vehicle with the other in the driveway with the door unlocked and some kid gets in and releases your parking brake, which allows it to roll out into the street and get into an accident with another vehicle, you're liable. Two liabilities, two policies.

 

[telemnemonics]

My only suggestion is forget the money you did not make the effort to save yourself, and focus on getting a new insurance company before fighting with the current one.
Changing the home owners policy may give them a reason to give you more grief you do not need.

As for paying for your wife to be covered during that extra year, insurance is not really refundable like that, AFAIK.
Let it go, move on, cut your losses and skip the grief of fighting an insurance company while you depend on them to cover you.

 

[dspellman1]

Insurance is a poverty trap. It takes advantage of people who can't afford to carry their own risk.

On an associated tack, I actually think people insuring their own car against the damage they cause to it should actually be made illegal. Third party insurance to cover the damage drivers cause to others is all that's really needed. If someone crashes their car, the only costs that should be "covered" are those borne by others. The damage they did to their own car? That's on them. People would drive MUCH more carefully if there were any real financial consequences to the distracted, impatient, incompetent and negligent driving that is seemingly standard practice these days...

Insurance is essentially a group effort to help mitigate the occasional financial catastrophe that befalls a member of the group.

People do NOT drive much more carefully if they don't have insurance. Just doesn't happen. And they're often not bothered by the consequences, particularly if they're in the bottom third of the country in income. If they bash their car, they find another cheap beater to drive. If they get in an accident and lose their license, they still drive. They're essentially un-sue-able, because they have no assets and even minimal or NO lawyer fees wouldn't be covered. It's why you carry uninsured driver coverage. "Illegal" doesn't matter to a whole lot of folks because there's really no penalty and because the legal system is already overloaded.

I was stopped at a light and got rear-ended by a 17-year old girl who was completely distracted talking to a girlfriend on her phone. She didn't even apply the brakes. My car was totaled. *I* was totaled for a while. She had a broken nose. She didn't have insurance, and while her parents had insurance on the car she was driving, it was with the the insurance company's strict proviso that if the girl drove the car, the insurance was immediately cancelled. And yet she was driving. Her parents repaired the car and even though they had no insurance and the girl had no license, she continued to drive.

 

[Winky]

Insurance is essentially a group effort to help mitigate the occasional financial catastrophe that befalls a member of the group.

People do NOT drive much more carefully if they don't have insurance. Just doesn't happen. And they're often not bothered by the consequences, particularly if they're in the bottom third of the country in income. If they bash their car, they find another cheap beater to drive. If they get in an accident and lose their license, they still drive. They're essentially un-sue-able, because they have no assets and even minimal or NO lawyer fees wouldn't be covered. It's why you carry uninsured driver coverage. "Illegal" doesn't matter to a whole lot of folks because there's really no penalty and because the legal system is already overloaded.

I was stopped at a light and got rear-ended by a 17-year old girl who was completely distracted talking to a girlfriend on her phone. She didn't even apply the brakes. My car was totaled. *I* was totaled for a while. She had a broken nose. She didn't have insurance, and while her parents had insurance on the car she was driving, it was with the the insurance company's strict proviso that if the girl drove the car, the insurance was immediately cancelled. And yet she was driving. Her parents repaired the car and even though they had no insurance and the girl had no license, she continued to drive.

The cases of where people seemingly simply don't care about financial consequences do not negate the general principle that people are mostly risk-averse.

But in any case, your example is not one of those. The girl's behaviour in your case was an example of someone who had no serious financial consequences for her actions. She knew her parents would pick up the tab and she drove accordingly. If she was actually insured, it would have been the insurance company who paid. Either way it was never going to be her responsibility.

Driving a cheap car is one way of avoiding "financial catastrophe" if you total it. Insurance is another. Both allow for careless driving in every sense of the word. I'm just arguing that the second one could be eliminated.

 

[charlie chitlin]

Did any of the How to Grieve techniques involve continuing to pay your insurance bills on time?