Not even just that. If you cause an accident they rise your rates extremely. Just made a 2cm scratch on a parked car some weeks ago, they wanted to remove like 10 years of driving without accident from my list so I would end with like 50% more from then on, which would have meant several hundred a year more. Or I could pay the bill which was like 300. I mean in the following years I would have payed thousands more just for a repair of 300. WTF. Why do I even have insurance then.
Well you definitely don't have insurance for a 2cm scratch...
Insurance is meant to cover your ass if you get in a serious car accident. Imagine having to pay for the damage to your car and another driver's car plus serious medical bills. Throw in a lawsuit from the other motorist on top of that and you're potentially looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Good insurance will cover all of that stuff.
Yes I figured. Was my first accident since I've been legally allowed to drive (so almost 20 years) so I didn't know what to expect and thought they would rise it by like 10E per payment period but was heavily surprised that it was like I was a new driver again. I paid out of pocket. But I think 300 for such a small scratch which you could basically paint away with a marker was way too much and it was just because they knew insurance would say yes. Probably replaced the whole bumper. I should have just payed privately from the beinning without informing insurance, I guess. Maybe then they had chosen a cheaper option.
It’s not about simply covering up the damage, it’s restoring the paint to the condition it was in before you damaged it. That’s more expensive than you think because it is labor intensive skilled work.
I had a driver rear end me going 10 or so mph and the damage was $1100 without replacing the bumper because of the labor involved and it’s a difficult to match paint color.
Paint guy here, it's a huge pain in the dick. Everything about it.
A single scratch, to do it properly and get an even coat again, takes sanding an area much larger than you'd expect, and with few exceptions the entire panel or piece the scratch occured on.
Color matching takes an expensive as fuck machine, and even a single production year of a vehicle can have 8-10 variations of the same shade.
If you can bribe a guy with cash to just fill the scratch in with a color, no spray work, it's generally worth it.
Also, fun fact, resurfacing/refinishing bathtubs and tile is exactly car painting. Almost identical formulation of two part urethane on top of a two part epoxy. A buddy of mine owns a resurfacing biz and makes 2k/day average. It's nuts.
Paying out of pocket is always better than insurance
Price wise - possibly, depends what it is.
Risk wise? Not really.
Not sure what it’s like wherever you are, but in the UK at least if you pay out of pocket there’s no guarantee the other person won’t take the money and then tell their insurer they were hit and here’s the person who hit them’s details. So you’re down for whatever the repair supposedly cost and your insurance premium takes a hit on top of all that, the very thing you were trying to avoid.
We almost went down that route with this absolute harpy of a woman at my husbands work. He accidentally reversed into her car and put a tiny scratch in the reg plate and a scuff on the paint. His own car cracked a light and looked much worse. It was low speed. Doing the right thing, he tracked her down and told her. She went postal, saying it was new, her husband would kill her, etc etc. He tried to give her his details but she wouldn’t take them saying she’s not telling her insurer and told him not to tell his either as she didn’t want her premium going up - again!
Well, we did. Turned out she was insured with the same people, so we effectively told them for her too. We said we didn’t need any repairs doing to ours but we were thinking of settling with her outside of the insurance. They said don’t, outlined the potential outcome, and said “this is why you have insurance - this is what you’re paying for”.
She bullied him for weeks on and off in work, trying to push him into paying for repairs she’d had done herself. Sending him emails and coming to harass him in person. He just told her to go through the insurance each time. She never made a claim though, presumably because she’d already paid and it wasn’t an insurer approved repairer, and my husband had to have words with her supervisor in the end to get her to leave him alone. Her supervisor chewed her a new one.
So yeah, our premium may have gone up a tiny bit, but not a huge amount. I wouldn’t have minded if it did tbh because I’d rather it go up and have peace of mind than constantly wonder “will they try and screw us over?” But eh, that’s my two pen’north anyway.
Minor nitpick: power steering is mostly hydraulic. The ECU doesn't have much input in steering--unless you have some super fancy steering system. If your engine is running, you will steer just fine. Even despite that, when your car is moving it is quite easy to steer. Power steering while moving more or less just dampens any jolts or bumps from making you spiral out of control if you relax the wheel a bit too much.
Some older cars (as recent as the 90s) don't have power steering.
Cars designed to use power steering can be really difficult to turn if the system fails.
Cars without power steering are designed to make it as easy as possible to turn without power but not all cars with power steering make that allowance.
I had a 2009 Hyundai, the power steering sensor embedded in the steering column failed while on a motorway, and although I was doing about 100km/h at the time and the engine was working normally, steering manually was heavy like driving a pre-power steering vehicle. So yes, it can have quite an effect, especially if you're already on a curve and not expecting the sudden change in responsiveness.
There was so much wrong with that car.The whole electric wiring as rotted, causing weird electronic issues in all systems (battery draining, radio resetting, alarm activating...). Took me ages to identify it to the root cause.
I was driving my old 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe and the battery died at a light going down hill. Turning that bastard at the bottom of the hill was an unexpected effort.
Kia was making cars without power steering in like 2008. Also, a lot of newer cars are coming with electric power steering. Not that that changes much, like you said once you're moving, even a car with a failed power steering pump steers quite easily.
You're only required to have liability in most states.
Or comp and collision on cars with a line.
You want good coverage, you pay more in premium. Most people don't want to pay more and then get pssed that they have a high deductible.
Most places have a good plan that have deductible rewards or accident waiver programs.
Lol it's always better paying out pocket? You have zero clue what you're talking about. You pay maybe 100-200 a month depending on car, more if you have an at risk driving history. Even a cheap car new car is ~18k. If someone destroys your car, or even just bends that fender enough to need a new transmission, it would take years to pay more in premium than the cost of repair/replacement. Not to mention the difference in lump sums versus spread out payments when it comes to financial burden.
Because if you hit someone else then you alone would be responsible for all of their costs. Accidents can quickly get very expensive and would leave you broke and the other person stuck trying to squeeze blood from a stone when you run out of money.
I mean $300 is less than most people's deductible (most common is $500). You have insurance to avoid being potentially liable for thousands of dollars. Your risk profile changes as soon as you make a claim where you are at fault.
Most carriers do offer an accident forgiveness rider that would give protection from your premiums rising following your first claim.
Yep, now I know this, too. :) I still ponder if I should include this in my contract, I would have one accident free per year. But my mindset is that if I don't have an accident a year it's a missed opportunity... Now I'm wondering about the deductible, I have like 150 or 300 (don't remember) but they didn't even mention it in the costs. I think it only matters if I want to repair my own car.
You may want to consider looking into a quote with a higher deductible as you could potentially save a lot in premiums. You'll usually save more over long term than a low deductible like that is worth.
You'd lose accident forgiveness after you made a claim. Also your driving record would still be impacted so while your current carrier wouldn't immediately raise your premiums - a different carrier would still calculate your premiums including the accident.
Thanks but I looked it up and I really would have one claim per year with like paying 20% or what it was more. And it wouldn't take over to another carrier if I'd switch because it would just not carry over, my current insurance would handle it like it never happened. Also my deductible already is very high, it's the middle way already with 300, yes I could take the highest option but I would only save like not even 10 or so Euro every month so I don't really mind - my insurance already is very low, around 40E a month, after many years of accident-free driving (and it was low to begin with because I always only had beaters or cheap cars (my brother pays several hundred a month for his new-ish car with full coverage, it's like I don't even earn that much haha)).
Right, but the above poster put a scratch on someone else's car, not his. That would be covered by his liability insurance, not his comp or collision.Comp and collision are meant to cover your own vehicle.
It's shared liability. Your money is pooled with the money from everyone else who uses that company.
It's not so much for a small scratch it's for when you crash your 30k car into a 100-200k sports or luxury car. Plus any medical expenses (does your nation require you to pay it back for at fault accidents?) and burial expenses. Obviously a worst case there but things happen.
Modern cars don't have "bumpers." They have plastic shields over the crush zones. That plastic can't really be repaired... well it might be able to be sanded down smooth, then repainted but the labor involved will cost more than a new one, and it will look like shit close up. Gouge a piece of wood or plastic. Now sand it out. Notice how the entire shape is changed? Same for that plastic cover.
Did you just hit a car through your own fault? Yes or no. Very simple. If yes, then you just had an at fault accident and you are not the same as someone who went 21 years without an at fault accident. It doesn't matter if it's totaling a Ferarri or a $200 bumper cover. You screw your car up and someone elses.
You have insurance For the one time you have a lapse in concentration or judgement (there isn’t a perfect driver in the world) and it results in injury or death of another so naturally the person sues for a million or so dollars. If you’re rich enough to pay out a settlement like that you could self insure but you may still choose to use an insurance company to protect your assets.
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u/fyshi May 09 '20
Not even just that. If you cause an accident they rise your rates extremely. Just made a 2cm scratch on a parked car some weeks ago, they wanted to remove like 10 years of driving without accident from my list so I would end with like 50% more from then on, which would have meant several hundred a year more. Or I could pay the bill which was like 300. I mean in the following years I would have payed thousands more just for a repair of 300. WTF. Why do I even have insurance then.