WHY YOU need to review your auto insurance

Apparently the government can't count states either. Still 50 of them. Maybe the 13 Supreme Court Justices or the 106 US Senators will weigh in on this...

 

Problem is, when many people still use 'the 50 states' as synonymous with 'the whole United States', we often end up with more than 4 million U.S. citizens ignored, left invisible, or even thrown under a bus.

Usually this is unintentional and clueless, but sometimes it appears possibly intentional to achieve certain desired results or conclusions. I remember a peer-reviewed 'science' study of a politically hot topic that purportedly covered the whole U.S., but the fine print revealed that the study area was actually "the 50 states". All non-state territories were absent from the tables, without explanation or mention. Based upon how statistically narrow the study's finding was, and independently knowing more about the characteristics of the two largest excluded territories, I was quite confident that inclusion of those two territories would have completely wiped out the narrow "whole U.S." finding, leaving zero support for the stated conclusion. In which case, the study would likely not have been published at all. Which segues to the issue of publication bias ...

Back to this thread, I'll guess that ETC(SS) has no intention of giving these two major license-issuing, but not-yet-official states, a pass on the thing that he believes the states ought to do. And he also intended to not leave them invisible and ignored.

 

I didn't realize that the number of states was such a hot-button political topic. I just assumed 50 was a typo. So, that will end my comments on this topic.

 

I've been here long enough to see him use 52 in another discussion, in a manner where it very clearly was not a typo.

 

i don't see it as an illegal immigration problem either. just another part of the no insurance problem.

what we need is vehicle insurance, doesn't matter who is driving.

 

I believe that is what we already have.

While crash rates are very highly correlated to drivers, the actual insurance is on the vehicle, not the driver.

 

Apparently not in this case. A fair number of drivers are on the road without any insurance, and there is rarely a penalty for them for not having insurance.

 

But under our system, it is still a lack of vehicle insurance, not a lack of driver insurance.

Of course, insurance companies seriously care about who the regular drivers are, and charge accordingly. But the insurance is tied to a particular VIN, not a particular DL#.

 

Friend once opted to go without insurance, and got caught.
In NJ, the fines and license suspension were worse than first time DUI.

 

would federal requirements help to eliminate lax states?

 

Other than the digression into the number of states we have, this was actually an interesting thread that I avoided when it first popped up as I hate thinking about insurance -- and -- well -- since I retired this year, hate thinking at all.

But I called my insurance agent, who is an old HIGH SCHOOL friend of mine (shows how old he is) and he pretty much substantiated everything said in the original post.

If you are unlucky enough to be hit by an uninsured driver with no assets you are really in a sad state. Sounds as if Kris was carrying minimal coverage (?). At least for medical. And, so do I -- or should I say did -- I. When I talked to friend Don, I upped all my coverage significantly.

And, while it was not a budget-breaker, it is going to cost me about $500 more per year -- have to stop buying doughnuts and Duff every morning.




As Don told me -- even if I have some person to sue after an accident -- they "ain't going to place a lot of value on the life of a 62-year-old slacker" so you won't get much recovery.

Good advice.

 

of course we care chris, why would you say that?

i hope you are doing better!

 

No. Liability covers both the other vehicle and the other driver. That's the part of the other driver's auto insurance policy that the health insurance companies exploit to escape financial risk. That's why you need uninsured coverage - enough to cover 30% probability of being involved in an accident with an uninsured driver.

 

Let me clarify: the insurance is carried on the vehicle, not on the driver. I.e. with typical auto insurance, if you have a multi-driver, multi-vehicle household, you need a policy for each vehicle, not a policy for each driver.

The proof-of-insurance card shows the VIN of the covered vehicle, not the DL of any driver. Yes, the insurance company wants to know who the regular drivers are, but the insurance still covers all cases when an unlisted driver was actually driving it.

 

Yes. I guess it would be more accurate to refer it as a "vehicle" insurance with a personal liability option. Those insured without liability are what are referred to as the "under- insured". "Uninsured" refers to those who have no insurance whatsoever.

 

Vehicle insurance is liability insurance....as stated above, and it's not really for the driver, but rather it's to (help) protect the motoring public from losses that happen as a result of people being people.
Most (if not all) insurance companies will not even cover a vehicle with comp and collision unless the vehicle has liability coverage.

(From the Googles)
Uninsured motorist coverage protects you if you're in an accident with an at-fault driver who doesn't carry liability insurance. Underinsured motorist coverage, on the other hand, steps in when you're in an accident with an at-fault driver whose liability limits are too low to cover the damage or medical expenses.

Most states have ridiculously low mandatory minimums for liability coverage.
In my beloved home state of Indiana for example those limits are 25/50/25.
More than enough to cover you in a fender bender, but ridiculously low in an accident that requires things like road flares and helicopters.
Since this is a mostly far left site---meaning most of my fellow posters are from west of the Rockies, California limits are 15/30/5, and Washington (State) has something like 25/50/10 which is interesting (at least to me!) considering the property values out there.
I wonder how many people are bombing along on the 5 right now making payments of a $350,000 starter home and thinking that they're "fully insured" with those limits.

Since many US states, districts, commonwealths, and territories have insurance commissioners that represent insurance companies rather than the insured...mandatory coverage for uninsurance is starting to creep into minimum coverage law.....which is curious.
I mean if insurance is REQUIRED by law.....doesn't that mean?........

Oregon is one of these states.

I just single-sourced the figures from a site on the Googles, BTW.
State-By-State Minimum Car Insurance Requirements

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the folks at (a-HEM!) "the balance dot.com" disenfranchised the good people in America's FIVE permanently inhabited, unincorporated territories....with their MILLIONS of drivers, cars, and.....traffic police!
I've been pulled over in two of them...and I got a ticket in Guam one time.....literally FIVE MINUTES after stepping on that island for the first time in my life.

BUT.....they included D.C. with it's 600,000 people.

Fun Fact:
There are US Citizens with US driver's licenses that live on US soil that are forced to drive on the wrong (left) side of the road.
IIRC, The US Virgin Islands are solely disadvantaged by this arrangement.

I want the popcorn franchise if they ever become a for-real US state and are forced to drive on the right (right) side of the road.....

 

+1

That's why I carry maximum coverage on my policy. For me that difference is $25K vs $1M of coverage, yet my premium payment difference is less than $10/mo.

 

I fixed that while I was reviewing my tapping.

Now reads "State minimums" instead of what I originally miss-tapped.

 

That is what happens when inflation meets political and legislative inertia. Our limits haven't been updated in about four decades.

That would be very few people right here:

(1) $350k starter home? Maybe after the bubble deflates for a while longer.

(2) Bombing along I-5? (not "the 5".) When was the last time you had a peek at our traffic congestion? Maybe if a new recession comes along to match the Dot.COM or Bush/Housing recessions, which sharply cut commute congestion, but I'm seeing no predictions whatsoever that a possible Trump Recession would be similarly severe.