Love that song. But I digress. In the preparedness thread, the idea of insurance was brought up, and it got me thinking. FOCUS: Do you carry insurance? Only the legally required minimums (auto), or more? Or less? Describe your situation (renting a room, owning a house, etc), and your current coverage (or lack thereof). ALT-FOCUS: Ever had to use that insurance? Share the story.
I own my condo and absolutely carry insurance. I've got a policy that covers the value of the condo plus $50,000 for personal property held within. There is also basic liability built into the policy if some jackass comes in and slips or something and decides to sue me. When I purchased the place, the bank had certain requirements regarding insurance, but they ended up being below what I actually wanted anyway, so it wasn't an issue. Also, since it's condo insurance, it's dirt cheap--less than $300/yr.
I've had insurance for just over 10 years. Nothing fancy, just simple homeowners, but with a special "auto mechanic" clause that covers garage fires caused by cars or related stuff. (I've had a friend that had a car catch fire due to an oil leak after he was working on it, without him knowing, and it took out his entire house... wasn't covered by his auto or household insurance). I also have a special rider on my medical insurance that covers auto racing anywhere in North America, for an extra $80 a year or something. The only thing I have that's a bit out of the ordinary is a self-employment insurance that will pay any rent/mortgage/auto payments/etc as well as 80% of my average monthly income over the last year indefinitely if I get sick and can't work as a result. It's stupidly cheap, and the Royal Bank stopped offering it only a few months after they started... luckily, I'm grandfathered into it. I do tend to not get collision coverage on my car, though, but bump up the under-insured driver coverage as well as the liability. The only time I've made a claim was when I hit a deer on my motorcycle, and totalled it. It wasn't paid off yet, so the insurance covered the remaining payments on the loan. And when my Porsche got hit by a deer, and required almost $25k in specialty custom repairs to the kevlar composite bodywork. Come to think of it, seems I have issues with deer.
I insure everything that I could not easily cover out-of-pocket were it to disappear or break. That means I never get things like extended warranties on electronics or buy phone insurance, but I am compulsive about carrying health insurance, home owner's insurance, etc. Several years ago, my compulsive tendency towards carrying good insurance paid off. My girlfriend called me at work and said, in a totally calm voice, "I am at home with the police, someone broke in today." I went home to find every piece of electronics cleaned out of the house. Nothing else was missing, but the TV, computers, routers, phones, cameras, just about anything plugged in or with batteries was gone. Well into five digits worth of stuff. That night, I was informed from several people that I was in for a nightmare. The insurance company was going to fight me tooth-and-nail for everything, and if I didn't have receipts, I should just get lubed up and try to enjoy it. Of course, I had no receipts. I had some pictures with some evidence of a few things, like the TV that was in a photo of our living room, but most of it was just stuff that I had never suspected I was going to have to prove I owned. The insurance agent showed up the next day, took pictures, and talked to us for nearly two hours. Not about our stuff. But about us. Were we okay, did we need immediate reimbursement for anything or could we wait for a check... It was unbelievably easy. They absolutely went out of their way to make everything right for us, we got full replacement value on everything and when I found out, almost three months later, that something was missing I hadn't initially accounted for, they replaced that, too. They made me a customer for life, for sure, and when I calculated out the yearly premium compared to the value of the stuff I replaced, I've paid for my insurance for something like 45 years with that one incident.
Heh. $300 a year? Extra $80 for auto racing? Insanity. How do you cope? I live in my pop's house he designed and built. The insurance bill is over $4,000 a year (so is the tax bill, but that's a different story of butt fuckery). Because of a mortgage the bank requires you to carry insurance or they tack on their own insurance which runs even higher. Insurance in South Florida is a huge, crooked scam. These fuckers run wild like packs of mean, mongrel dogs. When the place got royal fucked in the 2004 hurricanes the old insurance company cancelled the policy without a nickel in payouts. Though that's the same story with about 100,000 other people. Then other companies came in to write policies at an absurdly inflated rate, but still half of what the bank quoted. So, least it isn't lonely at the proctologist's.
I live with my parents so I don't pay home insurance Car insurance I have minimum coverage available, though I do have Collision coverage [with a $1000 deductable] as having that was required for my financing. Still costs me $291 a month.
He also chooses to live in a place that doesn't get wrecked by hurricanes every year. If you want to pay less for insurance move to a location where your house isn't in constant danger of being destroyed. Focus: I own a house and have a mortgage so of course I have homeowners insurance. This thread actually prompted me to call my insurance company to make sure I had enough coverage for my house and property in case it burned down. Same with my car. I've also learned what to buy an extended warranty and what to avoid. I always buy the road protection for my tires because I go through tires on my car like Charlie Sheen goes through coke and whores. I've also learned to buy extended warranties for my printers at work because staff loves to beat the shit out of them and they often break within a year. The absolute dumbest thing I've ever seen in regard to this is I was buying some stuff at Kmart one day and the woman in front of me was offered an extended warranty on some $25 curling iron - which she stupidly bought. Apparently at Kmart now you can buy an extended warranty on anything, since I got offered one on the $15 toolbox I was buying.
I live in one of the most active earthquake zones there is. Yes, I motherfucking have home insurance. My house has been standing solid since before the 1906 quake, however, so I'm not terribly concerned. My husband is naturally very cautious, so we carry extensive coverage beyond your standard health, home, and car. We have the fancy PPO through my husband's job because he has a multitude of interesting health issues (currently gearing up for major jaw surgery so that he'll have an airway approaching normal width) and ability to see specific specialists is not optional. I don't know exactly what the structure of our auto policy is but knowing my husband it's generous. He is also scared to fucking death of getting sued for something random, so we both have $1M personal liability coverage as well as libel insurance. My engagement ring has its own policy. And we're not done yet. We also need to add coverage for the rest of my jewelry and our silver - we were lucky enough to get my grandmother's 1938 collection with settings for 20 and that shit adds up not to mention being very difficult to replace. I have only every had to call on my insurance once: when I got t-boned and my car was totaled. At the time, I was on my dad's Fireman's Fund insurance through the local guy that has insured our family since forever. It was a clusterfuck. I kept getting phone calls from people at the same company who clearly had not spoken with each other. They also decided to take away my rental car a week before they had originally promised (that was fun scrambling to buy my next car so I could get to work). I sure was glad I had it though - the accident was technically my fault (turning left in one of those places where it's illegal but everyone does it anyway) and I would have been up shit creek without it. When I bought my new (to me) car, I bought tire insurance through the dealership. It was basically the cost of an entire new set of tires, and I planned to own the car until it craps out on me, so I figured it would pay for itself. Plus, they are run-flat tires so you don't carry a spare. This sounds like one of those shitty dealership scams but holy shit, I have never been so glad I bought anything in my entire life - those run-flats may run flat, but they don't like to run full for long. I've owned the car for nearly 3 years and have needed 4 or 5 new tires. That shit has already paid for itself. We will be testing the service of State Farm, our current provider of choice, in the near future. The stone in my engagement ring now has a fucking chip on the bottom.
My yearly total, not including auto insurance, is just under $5k. My health insurance (covering US and Canada) is about $600 a year, before the $80 racing option. I was just hugely surprised that the one thing I did that could result in being blown up, set on fire, smashed up, and other unspeakable things, was that little. The one bit of insurance I didn't mention was my race car insurance (which I only carry occasionally). It's a declared value policy, with 5% of the deductible as the yearly cost of the policy, and 20% deductible in the event of a claim. Claim is all or nothing.
If you ever want to make yourself cry, spend an hour and add up what you spend yearly on insurance. It's damn near criminal. Homeowners naturally. Our mortgage company only required coverage up to the amount of the mortgage because after that, they just don't care. But since the house is worth twice our mortgage we have coverage for the balance of that. Flood insurance is ridiculously cheap and we have the max limits on that. Flood insurance only covers a max of 250K for the house and 100K for the contents, so we have an excess policy to cover the remaining value of the house. Life insurance for me, Mrs. Noland and all three children. It's probably unnecessary to have life insurance on the children, but when they are as young as ours, it's so cheap it's worth it and we can just hand over the policies to them when they get old enough. Auto at 250/100 liability, accident, collision, UM, and everything else you can get on both our cars. Additionally we have a personal articles policy covering Mrs. Noland's jewelry collection which, I must say, I have done a fantastic job of building up over the years. We also have a home warranty which, if you're like us and buy a 120 year old house, is worth its weight in gold. Under that policy in the last 18 months we have had our AC repaired twice and they bought us a brand new $8,000 refrigerator because the ice maker in the 23 year old refrigerator we had died. Health for the obvious reasons. Which, since Mrs. Noland's insurance coverage through work (I don't have one) sucks we pay for ourselves. It's obscenely expensive with 5 people covered. None of the above would I consider even remotely optional. As far as I am concerned all of them are requirements.
Hi, my name's Frank and I'm a moron who won't cancel his renters insurance. I know it's illogical to have, but it's like cancelling Cinemax when you already have Showtime and HBO, it's so highly discounted that it seems stupid to get rid of. I would probably still have car insurance even if it wasn't required by law, but mainly for the off chance that I'm on the hook for a serious injury. The only other thing I would insure would be a home, I don't own anything else that I can't afford to lose. Maybe this should be an anti-focus, but as for ridiculous things to insure, Best Buy was trying to sell me a $5 warranty on a $30 set of headphones, I stared blankly at the woman trying to sell it for a solid minute waiting for her to correct herself because I was so confident she misspoke. I was wrong. Alt-Focus: I accidentally closed my tab while typing this post, luckily I had installed Lazarus for Chrome as insurance should such an error occur. Hilarious focus?: How moist are She-Girl's panties going to be when she sees this thread?
Also make sure to include any insurance paid by your employer since your wage is implicitly reduced by their insurance contributions.
A girl I work with didn't have renter's insurance and had a fire in her apartment right around Christmas. She's now out her deposit (I'm guessing about $2,500+) and I think about $9K for repairs that needed to be done to her unit. I never carried renter's insurance for my apartment in college, but it probably would've been a good idea. Especially since, as you said, it's so damn cheap.
I have renter's (required), auto (required), health (required by my school), and one for work (so my ass is covered if someone sues me). I don't want to think about how much I spend every year on it. But, it's a necessity. I've used my car and health insurance. If I get into my health insurance experience I'll become really, really angry. I'm in the process of switching companies. I hope my old company goes bankrupt and burns to the ground. I abhor insurance companies. I think they're the spawn of Satan. The physicians/healthcare professionals working for them are sell-outs with no clinical experience or people/social skills.
Probably the most expensive insurance I've ever had was Director's and Officer's insurance for a public company I was the CTO of as well as a member of the Board of Directors. It was INSANELY expensive, (like $25k per person kind of thing), but I didn't include it earlier because I never had to pay it myself... the company paid that. I almost had to use it, though... shortly after I left the company it was found out that the CEO was doing all sorts of bad shit, tax wise, including insider trading and offshore accounts. Luckily I was gone early enough that I wasn't dragged into any of that, but there was a shareholder's lawsuit brought against the management of the company that got ugly in a hurry.
I always took my health insurance (such as it is) for granted because I usually don't get sick. When you get pneumonia and have to be admitted to the emergency room though, shit gets real in a hurry. While I'm still paying down my hospital bill for that particular visit, I thank Christ that my payment schedule ends in April of this year, as opposed to 2 years from now.
Ahh, insurance. Ask any of the flood victims in South East Queensland about insurance and watch them fly off the handle at the moment. Off the top of my head, I've got: - Full comprehensive car insurance, because it's under finance and a requirement. Over here, all you need to have to be on the road is third party personal insurance which covers personal injury. It doesn't cover damage to property at all (that includes other cars) and I'm always amazed at the number of people who think it does. Watching the realisation sink in after an accident would be comical if it wasn't so tragic. - House and contents insurance. House insurance is a requirement of my home loan. I just got the renewal from the insurer, and it's something like $1,200 I think. I'm not even in danger of getting flooded. - Health insurance, because the government will make me pay more tax if I don't. - The dumbest thing is I've had to get professional indemnity insurance for one of my companies that doesn't trade, to cover events where there's zero directly attributable loss that is the insured's fault, with an excess of $5,000 for insured events with a maximum average of $2,000. The government makes it a requirement that we have this insurance as a bare minimum to retain our licence. We're paying about $750 a year for the privilege.
I am an insurance agent licensed in Kansas and Missouri. Personal lines (home, auto, boat, umbrella, etc) and life. Auto insurance is required by law, and you should absolutely have more than the state minimum requirement. I pretty much only write policies that have at least 100/300 liability coverage. Comp and Collision coverage is up to the insured but I recommend that for most people. My general rule of thumb is that insurance is there for the things you cannot cover yourself. Sure, you can call and claim a cracked windshield or a small dent, but you will pay through the nose for filing those little claims. Only use insurance for the big stuff. And trying to nickel and dime the coverages isn't very smart, either. Saving $20 a year on your home insurance isn't worth it when the worst does happen and you are underinsured.
I have very good auto insurance with USAA, my coverage is about 10 times what is required, rental reimbursement for 30 days plus I have windshield replacement, uninsured motorist insurance and a few other things. When I got hit by that drunk guy last year, his insurance company would not speak with me so I had USAA handle it, I had a rental car within an hour, they paid me out within 3 days for my loss and they paid every medical bill I sent them in a very timely manner and they dealt with the other guys insurance company, and they follow up to ask me how I am doing. They also insure my townhouse because the HOA has shitty structural only not including roof insurance, my voluntarily purchased insurance covers all the contents of my house and that fucking rock my wife has for about $300 per year, our cabin is insured by the same company for a very reasonable amount. My health insurance is a joke, for my wife and I it is about $400.00 per month, it does not cover maternity or just about anything and I am stuck with a $5000.00 yearly deductible, I have it in case shit hits the fan. If I need medical care I generally negotiate up front for a cash price and it is cheaper than saying I have insurance. They tell me this is fraudulent, I don't care.
I'm not sure the exact dollar amount my family and I pay in insurance, but I know that everytime I walk into my agent's office, her eyes light up like a Jew on Hanukkah. I have Renter's insurance (a requirement, but I've had friends who've lost everything to fire/theft, and I don't want to go through that), Liability on my 3 cars, a business policy for my photography business (covers liability if I ever get sued, and a $50 deductible on all $10k worth of camera equipment), Landlord coverage for my rental house, a business policy for my Coffee shop, and Term Life for the SBA loan. That's not including my parents (who have 3 cars, 2 rental properties, homeowners, and various other policies.) Yep, we're putting my agent's kids through school. I haven't made a claim yet, the only time I thought about it was a couple weeks ago when my stereo got swiped out of my truck. Liability wouldn't cover it, but since it was in the driveway, my Renter's policy would have. Except the deductible was $500 for about $550 worth of stereo, so I decided against it.