Drivers, as a general rule...

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Also a car that takes over 3000 dollars worth of damage  is rarely safe after being repaired... You really are better off getting a new one.

The good thing is that the money they give you goes a long way to financing a new car....

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

hrm... I'm not sure it's greed that they raise their prices. Maybe it is. But it doesn't seem dishonest to me. I mean, they had to give you money, that means it costs more to cover you. THey're protection against hypothetical emergencies. The cost goes down if you haven't had anythign for a while, and goes up the more likely they thing it is that they'll have to give out money.

[Entsuropi]

What saint said. After all, they have to make a profit somehow.

[Skar]

Insurance company: "Give us x amount each month and we'll pay for accidents you have."

You have an accident.

Insurance company: "Too bad about that accident.  We paid for your accident and it cost us y.  Now you have to pay us x+z for q months until qz = y.  Then you can go back to paying just x again."

Result, you have paid for your own claim plus the insurance company's monthly fee, which you were paying them so that THEY would cover your accidents.

That sounds like a pretty sweet deal for someone.

Now, if the insurance companies took into account how much you had paid them over the years and let that amount cushion the impact on your premiums of any claim you made, essentially functioning as a bank that specialized in swiftly and efficiently processing insruance claims, it might be equitable.  But they don't.  

They have to make obscene profits somehow I suppose.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Ookla, I'm so sorry about your car. I hope you are able to find a new one quickly and that it will be as reliable.

On the subject of insurance people, I have one other point. If you call your insurance company to ask them a question, call them again, at a different time and ask the same question. I had this problem with my health insurance when my husband and I were planning to move to CA, but would need to keep my COBRA coverage from my UT job (and UT only health insurance for that matter). I was expecting at the time, so health insurance was very important. Health insurance companies often won't cover "pre-exisiting conditions," so it was important that I not have a lapse in coverage. Additionally, there was some chance that my son would be born before my husband's new insurance activated (and he was). Planning ahead, I called the insurance company three months in advance to make sure that there would be no problem with the fact that I was moving to CA. The service rep told me that everything would be fine.

At the request of a concerned co-worker I called again, a few weeks before my husband and I would be moving, and this service rep told me that I would not have coverage because I would be seeing doctors out of the state, etc. and so forth. Everything worked out, but I wished I had known that there were hoops to be jumped through earlier, so I didn't have to stress over it so much.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

you misunderstand what they protect against. If it were simply a matter of covering the exact costs, and they didn't have factors like... oh, I don't know, having vast amounts of cash on hand to be able to pay for your accident and medical bills, or paying their staff, or rent, or administrative costs, then sure, they could just keep track of what you've paid and pay that much back out again.

Oh wait, that's what a BANK is for.

What an insurance company covers is being able to pay the amount you need when you need it. It's not a pre-pay installment plan. In addition, they're providing coverage that is required by law so you can drive your car. You pay X from your example so you're covered. No, I don't think it's unfair that laws require you to have insurance. I have much less trust in the ability of the average person to have enough savings to cover an accident where they're at fault than I do their ability to pay some money each month to a company to guarantee the money will come from somewhere. Again, the X is just to make sure the money will come from somewhere, and much of it goes to paying their employees and admin costs. And then profit. Yes, profit. How dare that private company try to make money! Curse those inhuman monsters! The X+Z is because it now costs more to cover you. Ie, they spend more to cover you, thus they need to make more to make it worth their effort.

No, they're not altruistic, but they went into the business to make money, not to be a non-profit charity. I fail to see how that makes them draconian obscenities.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

but MoD, that's ANY business. Do the same with Social Security, do the same with any service industry, you'll have a very similar experience. While it's something I absolutely despise and will tell people off for doing, it's entirely unfair to say that it applies to insurance companies and that's why they're evil. Maybe it does make them evil, but not any more evil than any other service provider of any type.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Umm, Saint, how did I imply that makes insurance companies evil? That definately makes them frustrating, and when you're pregnant, or have any other consistent need for insurance, it makes them nerve-racking (sp?), but I never said anything about their moral tendancies. I just wanted to throw that piece of advice out there so that others might be able to take advantage of my experience.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

sorry, I must have misconstrued your intent in the context of Skar's post.

[Mistress of Darkness]

np