Why were you glad? Didn't the other guy's insurance pay full damages?

I'm not the best at math but your calculation assumes every fourth member of this forum will have a $20k accident this year? I find these odds unbelievable.

 

I live in a small town in north central Wisconsin. Every week in the little local paper the Police Beat is reported. The usual domestics and speeding tickets, but at least half of the 15 or so vehicle tickets written include a citation for no insurance. And that's only the ones the police catch. Wisconsin does have a mandatory insurance law, but it's not a matter of don't do it, rather don't get caught. So those uninsured drivers are playing the odds, too. I'm not.

 

there are states that do not require you to have insurance. And while most states do require insurance, not everyone has it, thus the need to have uninsured motorists coverage. If you have a total loss and not lose sleep over it, then go ahead and not get full coverage..I’ve done it with older cars myself but am not willing to risk it with the Jag.

 

In some states (like FL), it's something like close to 15% of the vehicles on the road have no insurance. There are a LOT of people that don't have insurance or are way under-insured. Many of them are unlicensed. Good luck collecting anything from them.

Also, unless your car is completely paid off, if you have a lienholder (bank loan or lease) most lenders *require* comprehensive insurance so they can guarantee their asset retains its worth. If you didn't have insurance, got into an accident and didn't fix the damage, and then defaulted on the loan, now the bank has to go after you to fix their asset. So they require the insurance up front.

 

People in the UK get caught for driving while banned - that automatically invalidates any insurance they may have.

If only everyone in the world followed the rules - then there'd be no need for insurance since there'd be no road traffic incidents, or thefts.

 

Well put because that is exactly what it is: "...their method of creating something out of nothing [transferring wealth from the ignorant] is more profitable."
I personally know two people who trade BTC and routinely make 15%-20% in 15, 60 and 90 second trading windows. When I ask where this "wealth/value" comes from I get blank stares. So I press a little harder and get them to admit that they are taking advantage of novice "investors" AKA gamblers who don't have the skill set to predict the underlying crypto fluctuations.
My brokerage firm doesn't even handle crypto currencies and has no plans to.

 

That might come as a surprise to some but no, I didn't realize this problem is so huge in the US. Reading this topic I was dumbfounded why everyone seems to be focusing on uninsured drivers while I was mostly aiming my question on the odds of causing the collision without having the comprehensive insurance and having to repair your own car out of your own pocket. This danger of uninsured drivers causing a collision didn't even cross my mind as official statistics say that 99 % drivers in Europe (where I come from) are insured. Some countries like Germany and Finland have no uninsured drivers at all. Literally 0.0 %. While in the US the percentage of uninsured drivers is a whooping 14%, in Florida even 25%.

Knowing this now, I should've posed my question something like "If there were no uninsured drivers on the roads, would you still pay the full comprehensive insurance for $2000 or just the mandatory insurance for $300?"

 

My kid was siting in his 328xi at a stop light when some dude fell asleep and sideswiped him and 4 other cars. I called his insurance company to make the claim (Missouri is an At Fault State) and he hadn't made the claim yet and neither had any of the others he hit. His insurer said "you better claim it on your own insurance company, his limit of liability isn't going to cover this much damage". We filed with our insurer and had to pay our deductible but got it back a year and a half later after our insurance company got what they could back from his insurer.

 

I went ahead and marked both, even though the numbers don't reflect what I've seen for premiums. I pay $569 per year for Liability/Com/Collision for the F-Type, plus another $165 for Under/Uninsured coverage. While I agree with the logic of self-insuring whenever possible, and can readily afford a total loss, I recognize that the insurance is covering much more than MY driving. About 13% of drivers have NO insurance, so you're self-insuring them. Also, many more have only the minimally required coverage. In my state, that's only $25k, so I'd be self-insuring the balance in a major accident. One other situation to keep in mind - if the accident doesn't have a clear, chargeable fault, you're still self-insuring. That happened to me recently when an older gentleman sideswiped my F-Pace. The good news is that he had insurance, and that he "confessed" to the patrolman. So, the other company had to take responsibility. The bad news is that his insurance company is so bad that I ended up having to file with my own insurance company to get the car repaired. His company's "estimate" of the damage was about 1/3 of two independent quotes, but NO shop in a 30-mile radius would take the job unless I personally guaranteed the bill - even 2 of them from the companies "preferred shop" list.

Meanwhile, I would take the cost of the immobilizer and GPS tracker and invest THAT in the stock market.

 

I have full coverage but use another method as cheap insurance. I use a dash cam. That eliminates a lot of finger pointing after an accident occurs. As a bonus my dash cam also has parking surveillance.

 

Been thinking of getting a dash cam. Can you tell me what you have and how it's installed?

 

I have a 70mai Dashcam Pro. That model is no longer made, but they do have newer similar models. I did a lot of research and at the time it was one of the "best bang for the buck" dashcams. I got it because it was smalI, has excellent video and did not cost a fortune. A really good site to check for info on dashcams is: https://dashcamtalk.com/

As far as installation I did a quick easy install. I plugged the power cord into the center cubby and tucked the wire in along the trim below the door and across the top of the windshield. I just pulled back the trip pieces and tucked the wire in. The camera is mounted just to the left of the review mirror up high on the windshield. You can't really even see it. It just looks like part of the trim around the rearview mirror. You can see the wire at the top corner of the windshield where it comes out from behind the rubber trim and before it tucks in behind the headliner about the windshield. It does not look too bad as my interior and the wire are both black.

 

For each asset under consideration, you have to do a cost/benefit analysis. Even though I am quite secure financially, I have comprehensive on my cars because it's really inexpensive. If my insurance premium increased so it crossed the line [each person needs to determine where this is], then it would make more sense to self insure. My car is probably worth around USD35K at this point, so it's no big deal either way.

I don't worry about other people when it comes to finance. Assume that nobody is ever going to help you, take responsibility, or act in your interests.

 

Since we've found out that we have nothing in common in Europe and US regarding the mandatory insurance, this topic can be locked/removed. It serves no purpose unless I open a new topic and pose the question differently. I live in Europe where 99 % of cars are insured for 3rd party liability up to 1 million euros by law. So, I'm not motivated to pay $2000 each year just because I might crash my sparsely driven weekend car through my own fault.

If we can recommence the conversation with this new outlook, the topic can still be useful otherwise please close it. I thank everyone for their valuable opinions and experiences. Have a good weekend.

 

I’ve been meaning to do this as well, just booked an appointment. From my perspective CYA as much as possible, be that with insurance, savings, tech, or hell try for all three. The YouTube videos of dash cams paying off are unsettling (if you don’t have one installed).

 

Even if you have the skills of a F1 driver, sh*t happens. Or perhaps you've never had a close call [that was your fault]?

Everybody is telling you to get insurance because it's a no brainer.

 

Yes, in 31 years of driving I had two crashes big enough that the car had to be put on a tow truck. Both times the other party was at fault, so I didn't have to pay a dime.

That's why I hesitate to pay $2000 per year for something that is probably never going to happen. I'd rather put this money into the stock market, let it work for me there. It would be a no brainer if it was only $500 but $2000 is a lot...

But I'm not 100% convinced, that's why I opened this topic, all opinions are welcome.

 

If you believe that USD2000 is a lot, you need the insurance.

 

1% of uninsured European drivers is quite a large number .... You've only got to find one, or rather they find you.

 

I get what you're trying to say. But this is not the case here.

Besides my non-liquid assets, I'm lucky enough to have low six figure cash reserves ready to deploy for any misfortunes like a big car repair. I have no problem paying 30k cash in repairs tomorrow. Why? Because by not paying $2000 yearly comprehensive insurance for 30+ years and investing this money in the stock market I made a lot more than that. As an example, investing $2000 every year for 30 years at realistic 6 % return rate nets you $175k. So you see it's the opportunity cost that bugs me like I already mentioned.

Even if I had millions in the bank, the businessman/investor in me would always think about how to better use this money to augment it further.

We have exact same chance of dying in a car accident, but we don't think about this every time we get into the car.