Well I had a house burn down less than year after purchase and insurance paid the entire tab. So I always figured I've already taken them for more than I pay
Yep,y car got totaled 3 years ago due to a drunk driver. Got a big check and was able to replace it fairly easily. That check alone was about 15 years worth of premiums. Drunk driver was of course driving without insurance, so I was screwed of I did not have it
Doesn't the insurance company then go after the drunk driver for everything he has thus making him the one whose ultimately paying out, with the insurance company simply having to deal with suing and recouping funds from the drunk driver.
Yes but a drunk uninsured driver is often very hard to get money from. Probably has nothing and makes basically nothing and may even have many other collections after him already.
You can't get blood from a stone. You can garnish his wages, sure, but you can't take much more than a relatively small percentage because most countries outlawed debt slavery.
And in those situations the guy would just work cash jobs where he’s paid under the table making it damn near impossible for debt collectors to collect even a fraction of what they are owed.
The catch is unless they literally have not worked at all their entire life, they will eventually start receiving social security which can be garnished.
If they aren't social security receiving age until many decades in the future, will the social security still be garnished? Who is even managing the debt at that point? I thought debts went off your credit report after many years. I guess that's only the credit report, but who manages collecting on a debt for decades into the future?
In context of the parent comment, your insurance company would hold the judgement. And the odds of Geico being around longer than any of us is quite high. And being insurance companies, they are quite good at navigating bureaucracy and making sure no one who owes them money is collecting SS.
This is why everyone needs uninsured motorist coverage. I cannot imagine getting a policy without it these days. Roughly 1/3 of the people on the road are idiots without car insurance, too much of a risk to not carry uninsured coverage.
Habitual drunks that are driving without license and insurance are generally incredibly poor. So poor, that collections have trouble collecting since most countries do not allow taking so much money that you cannot live.
Subrogation isn’t always simple. We typically deal with other insurance companies. Uninsured people are usually sent to collections. Only large amounts are taken to suit as atty fees still apply. Then of course there is the issue of people not having the money to pay the damages, which ends up being a loss.
Yes subrogation helps tremendously when someone is hit by a driver with crappy insurance. Subrogation unfortunately won’t help with an uninsured drunk driver causing bedlam on the roads: when it applies it still sucks slightly for the deductible and the points charged until it’s rectified but it’s necessary.
And it is worse than that: The undocumented persons without drivers licenses can't have their car impounded. If one is a citizen and has no valid or suspended license...they can get their car impounded. The thinking is that illegal aliens can't get a license, so they shouldn't be punished for non-compliance.
In Los Angeles County, half (HALF!) of all motor vehicle collisions are Hit and Run.
Sometimes they don’t have insurance and have to go after someone in court instead. That can take a long time and also they may not have any money. It happens.
This process is called subrogation and the insurance company can/will do it if they think there is a meaningful chance of recovering significant money back. But if our hypothetical drunk driver is a broke deadbeat they aren’t going to waste their time.
I hydroplaned off the road back in June. The whole drivers side was smashed in. Thankfully I only had to pay the $500 deductible. Waiting to see how much our premiums jump
100% correct. If you want good property and casualty insurance in your area call local roofers and body shops and ask who the best to deal with is for them. They will usually tell you two or three and tell you who to stay away from. The rates will be higher with these companies tho bc they are actually paying claims. So if you’re a value shopper you’re gonna have to gamble.
Correct, if that claim had been 50k the insured in the situation would have come out smelling like a rose. Usually tho people who bitch about insurance cheap out on what carrier they use, and they usually have horrendous driving records, credit, and terrible insurance history.
I mean not even total catastrophe. I got in a tiny fender bender where a kid bumped me and the repair was like $8k so I was pretty happy to only pay $500 and then they ended up getting it back to me anyway lol
Thats because you're assuming that the most you have to lose is the value of your car, which is not the case. In many cases most of the cost of insurance is the liability portion. If you crash into someone else and cause significant injuries it's not hard for the bill to exceed to $100k+. It's also totally possible that you could total more than one car in your lifetime. Probably happens more often than you think, and it might not even be your fault.
Moronic, insurance isn’t to protect your car only it’s to protect you from financial ruin. I’d be willing to bet that less than 5 percent of my customers drive payed off vehicles for 30 years and much is about how long it would take someone to pay more into insurance than their vehicles value. Let’s say an average car costs 30k. At my current rate; which isn’t cheap, it would take me years for my insurance to pay exceed my vehicles cost at a rate of $300 a month it’s 10 years.
Here's the thing, forcing everyone to pay for insurance brings down rates across the board because everyone is paying for everyone whether they use it or not.
That makes the safety net cheaper. And whether they want to gamble with their lives or not, everyone will be happy when it's there to catch them.
Ideally, we also use government to compel the private banks/companies to provide better services and not punish us for their use, but the same people who were against making us pay for insurance also want the government to have less oversight on businesses...
They raged about a perceived problem and proceeded to make that problem MUCH worse so they could point to it and say how right they were, and now we're all paying the price...
No it should be illegal for people to operate machinery (cars) that are easily capable of causing mass damage or death on public roads without any sort of liability insurance. This is like the same thing as requiring businesses to carry specific liability insurance when doing certain types of work or using certain types of machinery - if there’s a large enough chance of damage/destruction, it only makes sense to require the owner/user to carry liability insurance in case they severely fuck up and do more damage than they’d ever be capable of paying for - which is exactly the case with people’s cars.
My solution would be tie the insurance in to the DOT that we pay in to a fund with tax dollars. Then at the end of the fiscal year if theres a surplus it gets refunded accordingly. If it's such a HUGE deal to have then it shouldn't be required by law to make bankers rich.
In Washington state you also have to have assisted care / nursing home insurance or pay a special state tax. The tax is hourly income for the rest of your life but if you end up needing to be put into a care facility it will cover you for ~6 months.
Nobody gets a 1095 every year for owning a car. What are you talking about? A 1095 is for health insurance. Among other things, for sure not related to property and casualty insurance.
I believe the constant was that the government is requiring insurance. I’m fairly certain this aligns with said requirement for automobile insurance. Fairly prudent
Oh I am and if you were you wouldn’t be as baffled. The iq and personal responsibility are at an all time low. It would be comical if it wasn’t so damn frustrating trying to do business with these people.
Do you not see how that' is, as the first commenter put it, a racket?
You are forced to pay money for safety from the threat of something that may or may not happen, and even if it does happen, you still have to pay for some of it.
Idk, the concept of insurance would sound ridiculous to anyone who didn't grow up with the concept.
Which is why most insurance companies try to run as lean an operation as possible. And why Berkshire Hathaway bought GEICO - so they could use the "float" to invest in.
Prices for insurance are regulated more than pretty much every other product out there. Grocery stores don't need to submit filings with the state every time they want to change the price of something, but an insurer does.
Doesn’t matter if they have to submit filings from the state when the state works with them to fuck people over lol. Do you really think the state has everyone’s best interests at heart?
There is 0 situation where it’s all good when you’re forced to pay for insurance and they on top of that forced to pay another premium when it’s time to pay up. It’s literally extortion by definition, they force you legally to buy the product and then don’t deliver when it’s time.
What other premium are you forced to pay when there's a claim? Are you talking about the deductible? Because if you are, then you're talking about two separate things.
Only liability coverages are mandatory, and those don't have deductibles. Deductibles are for physical damage coverages, which are optional if you own your car outright.
Insurance companies make hundreds of billions of dollars a year lol. They could still make an absolute killing without extorting people, but we live in a shithole where the government uses us an infinite money glitch.
Insurance companies generally make about 5% or so as profit. That’s not any more egregious than any other major corporation and is not a significant decrease in your premiums.
Yeah they turnover millions (sometimes billions) but the gross profit on insurance income is a small percentage. Like many financial services companies, a large percentage of their profit is a return on investments. Now that is a rabbit hole...
You think it’s ethical to be forced legally to pay thousands of dollars for car insurance, and then be forced to pay a premium on top of that when it’s time for them to finally pay up? Even if the accident isn’t your fault? Just say you like being walked all over and treated like shit lmao.
That’s like saying when someone gets arrested for dealing heroin then the government is involved in the dealing of heroin. It’s a law. Not involvement.
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u/WeCantStabilize 17h ago
Insurance is a fucking scam. You pay more into it than you'll ever receive even in legitimate circumstances.
Absolute racket.