The myth of insurance.
Pacomc79
Posts: 9,404
http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/14/news/companies/state_farm.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007021413
no matter what happens or what they tell you insurance is a business. Events like Katrina are why Underwriters make the money they make.
That being said for most of lifes problems its generally a pretty good deal if you have the right coverage for the problem. My guess is most people that bought "Hurricane insurance" assumed they were both covered for water and wind given that the majority of the problems associated with hurricanes are due to flooding.
Insurance companies though essentially they gamble on risk and they make shit tons of money when life is good, it's hard for me to cry for them when they are supposed to deliver on their product, especially with those shitty "we'll be there for you" marketing campaigns. Yeah......you'll be there but only if you couldn't find a legal way to write my disaster out of the policy I paid for.
If you live on the coast you might as well forget about insurance anyway. It'd be a waste of money even if you could get it.
no matter what happens or what they tell you insurance is a business. Events like Katrina are why Underwriters make the money they make.
That being said for most of lifes problems its generally a pretty good deal if you have the right coverage for the problem. My guess is most people that bought "Hurricane insurance" assumed they were both covered for water and wind given that the majority of the problems associated with hurricanes are due to flooding.
Insurance companies though essentially they gamble on risk and they make shit tons of money when life is good, it's hard for me to cry for them when they are supposed to deliver on their product, especially with those shitty "we'll be there for you" marketing campaigns. Yeah......you'll be there but only if you couldn't find a legal way to write my disaster out of the policy I paid for.
If you live on the coast you might as well forget about insurance anyway. It'd be a waste of money even if you could get it.
My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
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I hear ya Paco. Even if you read the fine print they will wiggle to try and get out of it. Extra insurance from an act of god??? Say I don't believe in god and the f'n sky decided to drop a piece of hail the size of a bowling ball through my roof. WTF! Now we have a new "terrorist" clause to read over on the contracts.
state farm is not your neighbor!
13 months later, my insurance starts going up. A claim from that accident was filed against me. They quote damage at more than $5,000. No way, I said. You need to send a rep out there pronto to look at the car. I have pictures, I told them. Blah, blah, blah.
This goes on for months, me complaining and telling them to look closer at the claim. After 5 months, they notice a discrepency and makes some calls. Turns out the guy I hit had DIED and his son found the information and filed the claim.
So, did my deductible go down? Was I refunded any of the money? Nope. Insurance, car, health, home, whatever....its all a scam.
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And, not too long ago, I got pulled over for "running" a blinking yellow light (come on - a blinking yellow light???). I didn't have my license on me, but the cop still let me go.
Once, back in October of '05, we were driving home from Dallas for the first time since the storm. Unfortunately, we didn't get to Orleans Parish until after curfew - had to sneak into the city - and ended up getting pulled over by five cops (two cars) in one of the "forbidden" areas of the day. The head cop took one look at us and said - literally - "You're not the kind of people we're looking for."
Man, I tell ya, it's hard bein' a White Male American. Always gettin' hassled/.
Who says insurance is not a business? I've never heard anyone say it's not, they don't claim to be non-profit.
Events like Katrina are NOT the reason why Underwriters make money. That event cost the industry tons of money. Had the industry not learned serious lessons from Hurricane Andrew and made changes to their business model Katrina would have bankrupt several large companies.
Guessing what people assume when they make a purchase is a pretty dicey game. The national flood program is pretty well known and nothing new. I'd assume that the agent is upfront about this at the time of purchase but who knows. There are several factors involved and one of the biggest is the individual agent. The corporate office may give direct orders to the agents to explain what is not covered in a policy but if the agent decides not to, what can you do about it? Nothing really, often times the agents don't even work for the company they're "individual contractors". Agents can low ball the amount of coverage that you need just to get you a lower rate, which makes you happy, until something happens and you're underinsured, then it's the companies fault. I'm not saying the company is off the hook completely but it's a little more dynamic of a situation than what's first assumed. It's your home for crying out loud, the largest asset that most people have, it's not too much to ask people to read the fine print and figure out what's covered and what they're liable for.
Insurance policies are contracts of adhesion, take them or leave them, whatever the company writes you have no authority to change. So, courts have decided that unless the insurance company expressly says it's not covered, then it is covered. This benefits the insured, cool. What's the result of this? Companies think about every single crazy event that they weren't considering when they priced the policy and put in fine print that it's excluded. The only other option is to increase the price of the policy to cover these events, would that be a better option?
Who's asked you to feel sorry for the companies? State Farm just said they didn't want to take on more risk than what they already have. Doesn't Safeway have the right to decide when to close down grocery stores? Why can't State Farm do the same? What happens when "the big one" hits and State Farm doesn't have enough capital to pay claims? Would it be better to recognize you can't afford anymore risk or just keep taking premiums and then go bankrupt? I think they're actually trying to be responsible. Think about it, they're refusing more business. If they're so crooked why wouldn't they take the money and then fuck them over later?
"FEMA has determined that your property is in a flood plain and you must secure a flood policy in the next 60 days. If you don't, one will be secured for you... blah, blah, blah."
We're fighting it because the house is built on a HUGE hill but until everything is settled (and we might not win) we must pay the extra 208.00 per month.
Rediculous. It could rain for 40 days and 40 nights and we wouldn't flood.
AND---I *just* found out that our insurance won't cover an orthotic shoe insert. They'll pay thousands for an operation to correct the bad heel, but not for a 400.00 insert. (and we pay almost 700.00 a month for insurance.)
Unbelievably frustrating.
Yeah, part of the problem is people are living in flood plains and coastal regions prone to hurricanes that are nearly uninsurable or should be to begin with.
Still, if they only insure lets say wind insurance in the hardest hit area say Mississippi. The house is gone, it's really impossible to tell whether the wind blew it away or the water washed it away or both. Whatever policy you have say flood or wind but not both the insurance company will force you to sue them because they will say the other caused the catastrophe so they won't have to pay the policy.
It's really a misrable problem in a misrable business really.
I'm simply saying it's false advertising.
Even if you do read the fine print there is no guarentee that you are truely safe because you are still at the mercy of the claims adjuster or the court for that matter and if you don't have the money to take it to court, you're just fucked and you're out the money you paid on the policy.
Car Insurance is mandatory. I've never had an accident. For the amount of money I would save ($200/month) not having insurance, I could easily pay for any damage I might cause if I ever cause an accident.
But so far, I've been able to avoid accidents. A few times I'm almost positive my car physically passed through another car or vice versa. But none of that was even my fault.
State Farm is doing some things that I believe are not right when it comes to paying claims from Katrina. The whole, which came first, the wind or the flood question? I'm not really disagreeing with that point, but I would like to say that those are people making bad decisions and are not systematic in the nature of the industry. Other companies are not being sued and are not receiving the bad press that State Farm is. That's because those companies have people that work for them that made good decisions. It all comes down to that, not the nature of the industry itself.
You make a good point about reading the fine print and still being at the mercy of the claims adjuster. That's why what State Farm is doing is so ignorant. They're ruining their own reputation. If, for example, you hear a lot of this business from State Farm but not Allstate, that's like State Farm buying ad space for Allstate, it's just dumb business. It makes no sense for a company that wants to grow, be profitable, etc. to do this when they have such a reputation. It'll force people to think about how much they trust their company and will cause business to shift to those companies that aren't receiving this bad publicity.
Your point about false advertising transcends to every industry in the country. I've been complaining about that since I was 7 years old. Whether it's TrimSpa, Frosted Flakes or State Farm doesn't matter, everyone's doing it. That doesn't make it right, but it's not the insurance industry's fault so to say.
It may be a miserable problem in a miserable business but I would say the miserable business is just that, individual businesses not the industry as a whole.
Don't forget, most companies have settled over 95% of their Katrina claims pouring billions of dollars back into the area. They did that fast and they did that efficiently. There are some problems but I still believe the good that these companies do (the service they do provide) far outweighs these individual instances of poor decision making.
You know, technically you can self insure yourself and meet the mandatory requirements of the state. I'm not sure exactly what the process is to prove to the state, but if you really wanted to you could do it.
However, most people don't think about the damage they can inflict with their car. Most of us think about repairing our own car or even the other's car but what if, it happens unfortunately, you cause significant bodily injury to a person or even worse, kill them? You couldn't pay that bill by just saving $200 per month.
True that, but in a way, driving by design is a very dangerous task. If I hit black-ice and kill someone, it's not really my fault. It's the ice! But I guess others don't see it that way. I mean, unless a person is screaming down Molasses Ave doing 100+ mph and purposefully slams into some dude's living room. I don't see many intentional accidents.
But my main issue with Car Insurance is that I'm guilty before I even apply. Right away they tack an extra $50/month on just because I'm a male.
No doubt, it's unlikely but unfortunately somehow it happens. My girlfriend (well, now she's my wife but at the time...) and another lady met in one of those intersections in a small town where there are no stop signs or yield signs or anything. They ended up hitting the corner of a house and damaging the foundation. That was completely an accident and noone was hurt, speeds of less than 40mph, but the costs to fix the house were a lot more than to fix either car. I think technically it was my wife's fault b/c the other lady had the right of way but it was still an accident. Someone has to pay for it...
Statistically speaking, we males cost more money to insure, why shouldn't we pay more? I've always thought that individual discussions about insurance raise issues, someone can always argue against their rate and why they don't deserve it, but you have to roll it up to the aggregate somehow. If company A charges the higher rate to males and lower rate to females and company B doesn't, company A gets all of the females and company B gets all of the males. Company A is fine because they're charging the right rate to the girls, but Company B is screwed b/c they were trying to average the boys and girls out but ended up with only the costly boys, they go out of business. It's called adverse selection and it actually makes the industry pretty interesting, but I digress...
I just hope your credit's good.
many good and fair points; thanks.
My credit is perfect. But I think there should be law banning prejudice in Insurance. I mean, what, statistically men cause more accidents, or are involved in more accidents. Maybe statistically women don't want to drive, so they don't risk causing an accident, they let their men drive. Now since there are more active male drivers than female, of course more men are going to cause accidents. I think historically, most drivers have been men. So that explains the statistical differences. But not only that, isn't is sort of prejudice to assume that I am just as likely to cause an accident as any other male. I am firstly not the macho type, and I've already been in several life threatening accidents caused by other individuals, one male, one female.
The first accident, dude was checking out a barely dressed female pedestrian, the second was my mother just spaced out at the wheel. It can happen to either gender and having the prices the way they do, is kind of derogatory to me.
You sure you didn't accidentally use the Jedi mind trick on him?
for the least they could possibly do
'Cause if I am ---- hooo boy, I'm about ta change the world, baby!
It's all about the frequency of accidents and the severity of those accidents when they occur. It's not about absolute dollars, it's percentages. So it doesn't matter if more guys drive than girls, on a percentage basis guys cost more than girls even when you take into consideration the fact that there are more guys on the road.
These are social issues and it's a slippery slope. Society didn't like when companies started first differentiating by gender, but now they're pretty used to it and it's not that big of a deal. Differentiating by race, watch out! Credit's out there now in use, but people hate it.
Boy... you really hate those people, don't you? I mean really REALLY HATE them.
None of us are going to be surprized when we read about you pulling off one of them San Ysidro McDonalds episodes... none of us. When they ask me... I'm gonna say, "I'm surprized it took him this long".
Hail, Hail!!!
If you've never had an accident, why is your insurance so high? That's $2400 a year. I pay less than $750 per year with full coverage.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
It all depends upon how old you are, how long you've been driving, the type of car you drive, where you live, how far your daily commute to work is, whether the car is kept in a garage or not and the number of miles you roll up annually.
If you are a 42 year old woman who has been driving with a clean record and drives a 2000 Volvo Wagon to and from her school teaching job 2.5 miles from her home in the suburbs of Pleasanton, CA... you will be paying a lot less than the 18 year old male College Student who drives a 1992 Mustang GT 22 miles from Long Beach, CA. to Cal State Los Angeles.
Hail, Hail!!!
what an asshole thing to say
you wont talk about the issue just attack me
who hear agrees with this nonesense ?hes crazy!!
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Why don't you tell the rest of your story...
http://www.wsp.wa.gov/crime/arrested.htm
...
The pictures you on the page you list to show your point of view are of Hispanics and Whites and proves nothing other than the fact that you hate Mexicans... nothing in that page says anything about their immigrant status. For all we know... they are all naturalized U.S. citizens of Hispanic background.
And yeah... I want them caught and brought to justice... I want them ALL caught... the Hispanics, the Whites, the blacks... all of the fugitives... not for the sake of their race, but because they are fugitives.
...
Here are some more faces of Hispanics and others you can mill about... think about them and your hatred for Hispanics
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/
Make sure you check out the Gonzalez and Rameriz pages so you can spit on them, too.
Hail, Hail!!!
i dont drive drunk, or drive with no insurance, or spit on people -all those things are crimes
ok ignore the fact illegals drive with no insurance and flee back to mexico and mexico has no extradiction treaty with usa and they arent returned for trial
if you were hit by one maybe you would get mad -im sick of arguing as if i beleive mexicans are inherently inferior -there are good and bad people in all groups -the damn whites also suck, they make the laws that allow this crap to continue
bush and his war suck
soldiers died, you gave me the link-well god bless them no mater what race they were
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for the least they could possibly do
theres this case
i wonder how often people do it to employers etc
but because hes a ball player he paid a few bucks and got off
million dollars to him is like 50 cents
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Exactly, What were you trying to prove here? That Only Hispanics drive drunk? That All Hispanics are here illegally? WHAT? You flood this place with your hatred for Illegal Immigrants... what other conclusion are we supposed to come up with? Okay, we get it... you don't like them... you hate them. Just be a fucking man and come out and say it.
And if... as you say... they drive drunk and flee back to Mexico... you should be glad because it means they won't be coming back... right? And there are no White uninsured motorists? No black unisured motorists? No Asian, Arabic, Hindu, Native americans that drive without insurance? What point are you trying to make, other than solidifying your hatred towards Hispanics?
Yeah... Mexicans drive drunk... people drive drunk. I can get hit by a white drunk driver or a black drunk driver or a Mexican drunk driver... but, I am not going to hold their entire race accountable for one individual's actions. I'm going after the drunk mother fucker who hit me.
Not all Hispanics are Illegals... many of them lead productive lives that contribute to our society... and some have died wearing the uniform of our country. They all have moms and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters... whom I can easily picture in the crosshairs of your jaundiced eye that piles them all in the Illegal Immigrant pit. Which really makes me angry.
Hail, Hail!!!
It has nothing to do with bias or predudice. Actuaries are driven strictly by numbers and statistics to determine risk, and based on risk to determine premium rate.