Is there a time you didn't buy insurance and it came back to bite you?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Medical insurance, car or rental insurance, home insurance (ie, hurricane, fire, earthquake, etc)? A $600 ebike died in the rain. I didn't buy the $25 insurance for 2 years which i regretted. Now I buy the $25 insurance for 2 years just in case. I've been lucky with rental car insurance not buying it but in the future I will pay it or buy the waiver for damages. I never get the extended warranty on appliances.

[bjl584]

not me, but it happened to my dad years ago. A tree fell through his cabin, and it wasn't insured. lots of damage, and he had to pay out of pocket to fix it.

[disneysteve]

I would never go without medical or home or auto insurance. Ever.

I never pay for rental insurance since my own insurance and the credit card both cover it.

You mention the bike but that isn’t insurance. That’s an extended warranty. Those are uniformly a rip off and I never pay for them.

[ua_guy]

No. My first job out of college was in insurance. Having had to deny claims where there wasn't coverage or there wasn't adequate coverage really changed my perspective. I've never gone without med/auto/home insurance because that's a very risky thing to do. The bad things do happen when you least expect them. And one hit can erase decades of savings and personal progress in an instant. Insurance is actually really cheap for the coverage it provides.

Reminds me of when I was rear-ended a few years ago. A guy plowed into a vehicle that stopped behind me while I was waiting to make a left turn across traffic. He barreled into her at about 50mph and I almost got out of the way. No insurance. My truck had some damage but nothing compared to the vehicle behind me. The impact with my truck rolled up the car's hood and punched through the radiator. The back end of the car was completely gone, pushed well into the rear seats. The offending pickup was totaled, front end pushed into the engine, front tires blown out, and the passenger sustained a nasty head injury as she wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The guy probably has about a $50k judgement against him or more...good luck paying that off. I get it...some people have to make really tough and risky choices, but those kinds of things will hang you out to dry when luck runs out.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I would never go without medical or home or auto insurance. Ever.

I never pay for rental insurance since my own insurance and the credit card both cover it.

You mention the bike but that isn’t insurance. That’s an extended warranty. Those are uniformly a rip off and I never pay for them.

A. ALL PROTECTION PLANS:
Depending on the Product and failure circumstances, at Our discretion, We will either:
-
Repair Your Product (on-site, mail-in or local repair service may be available, in Our discre-
tion);
-
Replace Your Product with a product of like kind, quality and functionality (replacement
products may retail at a lower price than Your original Product); or
-
Provide a cash settlement or a Gift Card reflecting the replacement cost of a new product of
equal features and functionality up to the Coverage Amount.

[myrdale]

On home owner insurance, make sure you understand what is covered and what isn't.

The creek floods and you're 6" deep in water in the living room, your carpet and walls and furniture are all ruined, but you're insurance doesn't cover floods your SOL.

God re-enacts Numbers 16:32 in your kitchen and garage, and your insurances doesn't cover undermining, your SOL.

[QuarterMillionMan]

PROTECTION PLAN DETAILS Coverage Term: 3 years Plan Number: Coverage Start Date: 04/11/2024 Coverage Type: Standard Coverage End Date: 04/11/2027 Maximum Coverage Amount*: Up to item's purchase price, exclusive of taxes and fees Waiting Period: 30 Days DEVICE DETAILS Covered Product: Outdoor Equipment and Playsets PROTECTION PLAN PRICE Plan Price: $24.99 Deductible: $0

[srblanco7]

We've always had standard insurance coverages (i.e., home, auto, personal articles). We've also carried an umbrella insurance policy the past couple decades - the umbrella used to be a benefit from my job, but that ended about 5 years ago and now we carry our own policy. For the umbrella policy we use the rule of thumb that the policy coverage is roughly equal to our net worth.

We've never purchased "extended warranties". We did have a washing machine that self destructed (still under manufacturer's warranty - happened at about 6 months of ownership) and Lowe's was great about replacing (after several technician visits to determine it could not be repaired). During my last "new to us" vehicle purchase, I was a bit turned off by the hard push for an extended warranty - it verged on ridiculous the number of times I had to say "not interested".

[jenn_jenn]

When I was 16, my parents purchased me a very cute Mercedes sports car (used; it was a few years old at the time). Given my age and type of car, it was very expensive to insure. Unfortunately, despite being a good and responsible kid, I was not the best driver.

After my third fender bender, my parents dropped comprehensive insurance on my vehicle because our already high insurance had become prohibitively expensive. They explained what that meant and told me another accident and repairing my car would be my own responsibility. Welp. I got into another small fender bender a few months later and drove around with a dent in my hood until I could save up enough cash to get it fully repaired myself. Thankfully I haven’t had another accident since.

As an adult, we’ve always carried appropriate home, auto, and health insurance and just recently added umbrella insurance. Hopefully, we should avoid any potential under insured situations in the future.

[QuarterMillionMan]

LTC insurance comes to mind that’ll bite a lot of elderly folks who didn’t buy when it was more affordable, unless you saved a lot for your care when you’ll need it but I doubt people saved. I attended a workshop and the speaker said the default in lieu of LTC insurance is the offspring as he & his wife had to take care of his MIL who had Alzheimer’s for years.

[disneysteve]

LTC insurance comes to mind that’ll bite a lot of elderly folks who didn’t buy when it was more affordable, unless you saved a lot for your care when you’ll need it but I doubt people saved. I attended a workshop and the speaker said the default in lieu of LTC insurance is the offspring as he & his wife had to take care of his MIL who had Alzheimer’s for years.

LTC insurance is a huge problem. It's very expensive and people who did buy it years ago when it first got popular have seen the rates skyrocket because companies totally screwed up their projections. Now people are scared off from buying it due to the high cost, but stats show a high percentage of people end up needing some sort of care when they're older.

My mom is 93 and has an aide 4 hours/day. Thankfully she did buy LTC coverage years ago so it's covered, though I don't know that she'll live long enough to recoup what she paid in in premiums over the years. She could though. The nice thing is that now she writes a check every week but gets reimbursed from the policy when I submit the monthly invoice.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Genworth gave me the option of either doubling my annual premium from $1200 to $2400 a year, or taking a hair cut of cutting my benefit in half going from $300 a day for 3 years down to $150 a day for 3 years. I chose keeping my premium at $1200/year and taking the benefits hair cut of $150 a day for 3 years.

[QuarterMillionMan]

And with advances in medical care people are living long in nursing facilities where they prolong life to keep getting paid.

[disneysteve]

And with advances in medical care people are living long in nursing facilities where they prolong life to keep getting paid.

Nursing homes certainly aren't prolonging life. Just the opposite if anything. But you're right that people are living longer, which is part of what the insurers failed to account for in pricing their LTC policies years ago. Look, my mom is 93 and still lives independently in a senior apartment building where there are at least a few residents over 100 and quite a few in their 90s. This isn't skilled nursing or even assisted living. This is totally independent other than any private help they bring in themselves like my mom's aides.

How do you price and sell LTC insurance when more and more people are making it into their 90s and beyond?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Screenshots I took from a Zoom workshop about facts & figures on LTC.