Auto insurance Full coverage or Liabilty

[goodoleboy]

What do you carry for auto insurance full coverage or liabilty only and why? My reason for liabilty only is the cost factor. I can pay $300 a year for liabilty only or $600 year for full coverage + deductible of $1000. Dad taught me never purchased a car that I had to get a loan for becuase It would require full coverage.

 

[oilyriser]

Your dad is very wise. I have just liability and medical.

 

[oldman]

I insure four vehicles and all are paid in full. The extra every six months is 162.55 for Comprehensive loss, 385.97 for Collision loss, rental 72.00 and towing and labor 24.00. Grand total of 644.52 every six months for vehicles that I cannot replace for that amount. I believe it is worth it in the long run. A friend of mine borrowed my F-150, 1994, and hit a deer one mile from the house. I cost me 500 deductable and the total for the repairs was over three thousand. If I did not have comprehensive I probally would have sold the truck. Plus I just purchased a trailer and I have comprehensive on it also. Vehicles 2003 Toyota Tundra 1997 740iL BMW 1997 E-350 Van 1994 F-150.

 

[CapriRacer]

A word of caution: Liability covers you if you hit somebody, which is why most states require it. Collision covers the repairs to your car, your fault or not. Comprehensive covers repairs to your car from other stuff - hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, hail - as well as stupid stuff like debris in the road. This means that if you hit the concrete block that some truck dropped 5 minutes before you arrived - Tuff!! In essence, having liability only means if something happens to your car and it's not identifiable as someone else's fault - you're stuck with the repair bill! I interpret this to mean that any car I don't have collision on might be written off at any time - if I can't afford to lose the car, then I better have Collision AND Comprehensive. Hope this helps.

 

[MONKEYMAN]

Comprehensive on the 99 Saturn I am financing. Unfortunately, my dad died when I was 16, so after 29 years, I have learned the lesson not to finance. But, the car has value, and if something would happen, I would want it repaired. On the other hand, my 93 Sentra, with 173,000 miles has liability. I drive it to my parents, knowing I could hit a deer, and the car would be history. But, the car is not worth much more than the deductable.

 

[bulwnkl]

quote:

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Originally posted by goodoleboy: What do you carry for auto insurance full coverage or liabilty only and why?

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We carry liability and comprehensive on our 2 vehicles, but not collision. I was taught what I consider a very valuable lesson many years ago: You only insure that which you cannot afford to lose. As was said above, ALL insurance premiums are bets against the house. That doesn't make them bad or unwise bets, it just makes them losing bets for the vast majority of people. I insure my health and my life and those of my wife because my family cannot afford to lose either. Our vehicles were sufficiently inexpensive in the first place that it would be foolish for us to pay for collision insurance. The premium difference put into a savings account will replace either of the cars in short order.

 

[srivett]

Liability for me. If my car got wrote off by somebody I would be mad but that's life. I have a couple other backup vehicles I can use to get to work...assuming I had a job. Check out the repayment plan on your full covereage if you have it. Unless you run a 60,000 dollar car through a chipper you are gonna end up paying the bulk of the compensation back to the insurance company. I think you are punished for 8 years in Ontario and they will up your yearly payments by several thousand a year. Steve

 

[XS650]

The insurance companies have some very smart people working for them. They have determined that by charging the rates they do they will make a nice profit, pay a lot of salaries and lobbyists, taxes, business expenses and lease or buy a bunch of big buildings. If you can afford to absorb the loss, then buying ful, coverage insurance is like betting against the house in Las vegas. In the long run overall, the house always wins. Crunch some numbers and figure out what you are buying for your $300/year. If your car is worth $5,000 and you have $1,000 deductable, than you are paying $300/year for insurance on a $4,000 worth of asset. That's an example, you will have to figure out what you car's worth in the eyes of the insurance company and calculate it yourself. Also keep in mind that a claim can raise your rates in following years.

 

[ruking77]

Uninsured Motorist coverage and waiver of this deductible is a MUST HAVE for me. CA (and I am sure most other states) has a rule that even though insurance in mandatory for EVERYONE, a person involved in an accident without MANDATORY insurance, still has a right to sue a person who HAS the mandatory insurance. Insurance companies (deep pockets) will often settle to avoid letting it go to so called "litigation". Also there are estimates that fully 25% of drivers are NOT insured. When you marry that to the folks that are UNDER insured, can't afford insurance, or for folks who like to drive habitually DUI, this aggregate can be a pretty big %. Of course this only really matters if one of that population/s gets into an accident with you and causes far more dollar damage than he or she can pay. (which by definition is not a very high threshold.) So if you are a careful uneventful driver, the next accident will probably be someone elses fault, which for insurance purposes is the good news....(if an accident can be good news) AND the BAD NEWS. [ March 20, 2005, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: ruking77 ]

 

[michaelc80]

It depends on the value of the vehicle and the cost of collision. On my 96 Cherokee I do not carry collision. Nor do I on my 87 Sentra. Neither vehicle has enough book value to justify it. On my 2000 Jeep I do as well as my 92 300ZX. For the amount that I save on collision for the lesser valued vehicles I can invest that money, earn interest, and replace them should it be needed.

 

[XS650]

In many if not most states, any accident with over a certain, often low, dollar value damage is supposed to be reported to the state department of motor vehicles. Even if you don't file a collission claim with your insurance company, your insurance company has access to that state data and can raise you rates because you had an accident. Know what the limit is in your state and do whatever your conscience will allow you to do to keep from reporting an accident that exceeds that limit.

 

[Drew99GT]

quote:

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Originally posted by michaelc80: It depends on the value of the vehicle and the cost of collision. On my 96 Cherokee I do not carry collision. Nor do I on my 87 Sentra. Neither vehicle has enough book value to justify it. On my 2000 Jeep I do as well as my 92 300ZX. For the amount that I save on collision for the lesser valued vehicles I can invest that money, earn interest, and replace them should it be needed.

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Exactly. My car has a wholesale value of like 2 grand. I carry a deductible about that high, so full coverage for me is like burning money.

 

[pitzel]

$500/year (Canadian) for me, $700 accident deductable, liability, personal injury. I usually hate socialism, but horray for socialized car insurance! The weird thing is that it costs just as much to insure a $60k Mercedes as it does a $15k Chevy Cavalier. I don't know if there is any sound actuarial basis for this, but insurance is surprisingly economical on expensive vehicles here.

 

[Gary Allan]

I have to have collision on my financed vehicles ...but I also have it on my Caravan. It's not that much as a third vehicle and would be there only for "replacement vehicle money". Any major hit would total it. I'm running too close to the edge to just throw away a perfectly functional vehicle to random circumstance. I don't have it on my daughter's Taurus since any old beater will serve her through college ..or she could just use my jeep until one is found ..but the mini van serves too many short mileage tasks to be without.

 

[FL-400S]

When the value of the car drops below $5-6K then Im dropping the full coverage. Its good to keep full coverage on at least one vehicle though, since then you have liability protection when you rent cars I believe.

 

[Virtuoso]

After paying out the yang on a car payment and full coverage; I'm very happy only paying liability on my Saturn. I still keep under and un-insured motorist coverage (my brother was killed by a drunk driver w/ no insurance, what a mess). But paying what my car is worth every two+ years in insurance is rediculous. (Aside from the fact I couldn't afford food then too..) I am keeping a nice life insurance policy until the kids are out of school though.

 

[JHZR2]

we have never had full coverage on any of our cars. My father figured that amongst the hundreds of thousands of miles that he, my mother, his parents, her parents, etc. drove, there was NEVER a need to have/enact collision or comprehensive coverages. His parents never had it, nor did my mother's parents, and all was well. The overall thinking was that for all the hundreds and thousands of dollars paid in all that time with no need for coverage, in time the savings from NOT paying it, if there ever was need for repairs, chances are that there would be more than enough money saved from all those premiums NOT paid to cover it. Well, this summer, I was rear-ended in a car that was mine (I was still on my parents' policy, because I was just out of grad school). The problem was that I was hit by an uninsured driver. Since we only had liability and uninsured coverage fro bodily injury, our company would do nothing... SO now I am suing the drivers and surely wont get anything. If I had collison/comp, I would have been covered to some extent, or at least my insurance company would have chased the driver and the owner's insurance (the owner of the car had insurance, but thats another story). I know this is the case because the person who hit me caused a 4 car pileup, and the other cars were repaired by weach owners' insurance. This post may be hard to follow, I apologize. JMH

 

[Schmoe]

Yeah, but the days of cheap car fixes are long over from the days of your parents and grandparents. With unibody construction and wrap around fenders, you can't even begin to touch a car under 2K these days. If you can't afford to replace it, comp them all, I say. Even if your car has miles on it, everything works, like AC, radio, heater, etc. etc., there's no way you could replace it for at least 2 to 3K. Like in my case, my '90 Cutlass, everything works, runs good but the blue book is something like 800 dollars. I don't carry comp on it for that reason. However, my 01 F150 4x4 Lariat that's paid off, still worth about 20K, she gets full comp. You get in a wreck, your fault, you have liability only, your out 20K. And for what? To avoid paying an extra 100 or so every six months? I say in this case, it is worth it. Also, even with stricter insurance laws, lots of people still don't have insurance. They keep it long enough to register the car, then drop it.

 

[Norm Olt]

Some carriers will allow you to carry comp without collision: if the premium and deductible are reasonable this can be a very viable option. If a rock goes through the windshield, the car is stolen, trashed by vandals, etc., a reasonable comprehensive deductible will allow you to recover most, if not all of your loss. A new windshield on a 30 year old Mercedes is a bargain with a $100 deductible. Collision insurance is mainly for the damages you do to your vehicle, IMHO. If the book value of your vehicle does not warrant collision coverage anymore, continue to BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! Cheers!

 

[rjundi]

Full coverage w/ $500 deductible on Collision in NH. This is only $450/year for a 2004 WRX Wagon, although my driving record is clean. The reason is I think insurance is inexpensive.