Insurance is tricky especially in certain areas - where I live, insurance rates are high and even with my excellent driving record (no accidents knock on wood!), I also only drive ~4k miles a year. I pay around $900 for liability only. I'd be paying closer to $2000/yr for full coverage on my GS.

I figure with the money i've saved, if I ever was in an accident my liability insurance covers the other driver, my savings covers my GS, my health insurance covers me/family. My '13 GS w/59k blue-book value is around $16k.

 

I get it, it works for you.

Least of my worries in an accident is my car. I think I pay $1,600 a year for full coverage 100/300/100K coverage.

 

I forget but it's the state minimums here is Virginia. The weird thing is if i check any other insurance company in my area the monthly cost is almost double, no one else can get me a rate this low. For some reason were I live Gieco has the lowest rate. My fiancee has Gieco on a 2009 Honda Accord and pays about $26 also. The funny part is my last car 2010 Honda Civic cost a few $ more than the GS. Then again liability insurance shouldn't change much based on what car you drive.

I live 30 minutes from Washington DC in a populated area, so $26 a month is a gift here.

 

Google says 25K/50K/20K is min for Virginia. Are you covered against and uninsured motorist also? As long as it works for you, it's all good.

I live in Chicago the crime capital of the US. Everything in Chicago is more expensive. LOL

 

Anything that happens to my car, I just pay out of pocket, sell/buy another car if it's that bad. I have front and rear dash cams for video evidence and it reads license plates very well. If it was a hit/run and I got a plate read show the footage to the police and take them to court.

Based on what other people are paying I've saved thousands over the years, enough to buy another car, so it's worth it for me.

I checked apparently my rate went up slightly around $27 a month. I don't check normally since it's automatically billed.

 

The $25,000 per person & $50,000 per occurrence for bodily injury/medical coverage and $20,000 per occurrence for property damage coverage is a negligible amount when medical costs could easily run well over 6-digits and into 7-digits. If you are at-fault I feel sorry for you for not having MUCH more coverage to the tune of 10 times the amount more coverage ...plus an umbrella policy to protect what assets you have. Same goes for the property damage - $20,000 doesn't go too far. In my opinion, you are walking on thin ice and playing Russian roulette at the same time! But, if you don't care...then I certainly don't care.

 

I never thought there would ever be a day that I would agree with you. But today is it!

His 25/50k for bodily-injury liability coverage is so miniscule that it's literally like not having insurance at all!

The $20k in property damage for liability is also a joke (sorry to say that). He will be paying out of pocket if he ever hits a brand-new car. It doesn't take much these days to cause $20k in property damage (ie. hitting a NEW lexus, or colliding into multiple cars....)

If you own a home, you better have at least 1-million in liability coverage..... at least in CA.

 

If I owned a home outright, loan paid off and i wasn't in a flood/fire/risk zone I would not have home insurance. I also don't have health insurance, just pay out of pocket if I really need anything. Maybe when I get married I'll go on her plan.

 

Damn brah, you really like to walk the line. LOL Sadly in my life health insurance has saved me from growing bankrupt twice and it wasn't even me that was sick.

As for your hit and run example of taking them to court, good luck. My brother had two hit and runs in his lifetime. Got plates, filed a report and cops were too busy to even do anything. It was the same when my old car was broken into a long time ago. Cops filed a report and insurance took care of the damages and stolen items. StateFarm even paid for all my aftermarket items and personal items that I had receipts and pictures.

 

You really should consider higher liability coverage. That's what insurance is really for.
If you kill a wealthy person through some mistake on your part, the family will sue you until you are dead, and you have no protection.

 

The home insurance thing you definitely should reconsider. If it's already say a 300-500K home and for some reason your home catches on fire, maybe not your fault or maybe its your kids (if you have them or in the future) you'd definitely want it. Even though the house is burned you cannot leave the home in its current state and must be fixed or rebuilt depending on HOA. So now not only are you out that initial home fee but now you MUST be out another house price or sell the land for marginal value and downsize to something else. Many things are out of your control. I am out of a flood zone and no real fire risk but have had two homes requiring extensive repairs already under insurance due to hail and flooding that has never before seen in history. I am also a young and healthy 30 year old guy but required an arm surgery for a freak accident and if I had no insurance that would've been another 50K out of pocket. Yeah I could pay for that out of pocket and wouldn't be too bad but I didn't have to. That one incidence is worth over 20 years of health insurance payments right there.

I have also totaled a car that was clearly not my fault even police report and everything sides with me. I have also had 0 traffic tickets or accidents that were of my fault in my whole life. But that one time someone hit me head on took 2 years to settle in court at a huge loss of actual value to the car. The court stuff is just very time consuming and they always push it back. It took so long that one of my witnesses no longer wished to be there or forgot and I believe that is one of the goals of the other side. Either way I "won" but at what cost? But yeah I agree that once the car value goes down pretty low its not worth insuring the car for full coverage. None of my GS' have full coverage anymore because they're just not worth much anymore.

 

Yeap! Dumbest way to get hit! Happened to me too with my old RC as I was waiting for this woman to leave her parking spot so I can take it but she ended up hitting my car while backing up, just like urs.

Of course she has no insurance (99.9% of Cali drivers) but I let my insurance company handle everything and I ended up paying zero $ out of pocket cause I have the uninsured motorist coverage.

The repair costed them about $1000 also and they refunded my $500 deductible cause it's not my fault and I had it recorded on my dash cam.

 

Having your insurance company handle everything was smart!

 

One of my buddies went with Geico and had one of those low liability insurance coverage. Why pay more when I am driving an old Honda Accord was his rationale.

Well one snowy evening while exiting the expressway, he slid, hit a fence and a ComEd electric box. To make a long story short, when all was said and done, ComEd put a $40,000 lien on him. So he now has a fence and electric box named after him. LOL

 

I think what everyone is concerned about in the last few posts is having a "balanced" insurance plan. Folks tend to be uncomfortable with the minimum insurance car coverage but also feel having the highest levels of insurance coverage might be a waste considering the cost/benefit.

Everyone is making great points....Maybe having at least liability coverage that covers the 6-figure amount might make sense because of today's economics/costs.

But, you can pay more for the highest coverage and nothing ever happens, or pay little and the moment something happens you kick yourself in the head. Its hard to judge because its really an educated gamble we're making.