Ask me about insurance!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Ask me about insurance!

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Never mind, my question was dumb/answered it myself.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2013 14:45

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 05:16

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Jastiger posted:

But they can still refuse to rent to you, and likely will.

I have never paid for supplemental coverage when renting a car, and no one has ever made me prove that I have my own car insurance - how would they even know?

# ¿ Mar 25, 2017 15:35

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Jastiger posted:

In every instance I've dealt with rental car companies they require you to sign a form stating such.

I can't find anything in writing anywhere that says if you don't pay for their crappy rental insurance, you have to provide proof that you have your own coverage to rent a car. I imagine they tell you all kinds of horrible things when you are actually at the counter, and they definitely make you sign a form rejecting all their extra coverage they try to sell you - but I can't ever remember signing a box stating that I have my own liability insurance which definitely covers rental cars.

Here is the Hertz rental terms. https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/reservation/reviewmodifycancel/templates/rentalTerms.jsp?KEYWORD=COVERAGES&EOAG=MIAT15

quote:

F.Y.I. � You are under no obligation to purchase LDW or any other optional service as a condition of rental. Your own personal insurance may provide protection for loss or damage to the rental vehicle depending on the state in which you live and the type of policy you have. Also, various credit card companies provide cardholders with some degree of damage protection providing you use their credit card for the rental and decline the optional LDW offered by Hertz at time of rental. The coverage and limits vary. Your policy or credit card coverage should be thoroughly checked for the specific terms and conditions associated with rental vehicles. Remember, most credit card insurance is supplemental, which means it will only reimburse you for loss or damages over and above what is covered by any other insurance you may have and will not cover you for any damage, regardless of cause, if you accept LDW.

Budget, similar language: https://www.budget.com/budgetWeb/html/en/terms/BudgetFastbreaktnc.pdf

quote:

How does SLI affect the application of your automobile or umbrella insurance policy?

Your personal insurance policy providing coverage on an owned automobile, or other personal policy, may
provide additional coverage, and to that extent, SLI may provide a duplication of coverage.
Whether, at what point, and to what extent, your own policies apply can only be determined by your
checking the terms of the policies themselves as these terms frequently vary. However, if SLI is accepted, the
protection afforded by SLI, and the limits of protection under this Rental Agreement, are primary to your own
policies. This means that before your own policies would apply to pay a claim, the $2,000,000 protection
afforded by the combination of SLI and financial responsibility limits under this Rental Agreement limits would
have to be exhausted. If you do not accept SLI, your insurance, if any, is primary as stated in this Rental
Agreement.

And in general from this article: http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/30/pf/insurance/rental-car-insurance/

quote:

And those who aren't covered by their own insurance, are likely covered by their credit card, he said. All four major credit card issuers, Visa (V), American Express (AXP), MasterCard (MA) and Discover (DFS), provide some form of rental car insurance coverage. Although, MasterCard issues a few cards that don't offer coverage.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2017 16:41

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Jastiger posted:

Look at it this way, if it's the law to legally operate a vehicle that you have liability insurance, why would it be legal to rent a car and carry nothing? How does renting a car while having no policy anywhere somehow make you covered?

I have always thought that the rental company provides the bare minimum liability insurance required to drive legally - and if you turn down their insurance and total the car they would sue you for the damage (if you aren't covered by your own insurance, or credit card, or just pay out of pocket). That's why they are trying to sell you "supplemental" liability protection at the counter - because it supplements the minimum they already provide.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-rent-a-car-without-insurance-in-the-US This is the most straightforward thing I can find online about it (most articles all quickly degenerate into "you probably are already covered with your insurance/credit card", or "the minimums aren't nearly good enough"). It seems to agree with what I thought was true - that the rental car company will provide the bare minimum to make you legal by default.

quote:

Is it legal to rent a car without insurance in the US?

Yes.

As part of your rental agreement, the rental car company must provide the minimum required insurance in the jurisdiction that the vehicle is used.

In the US, the minimum required limits of coverage can be relatively low, do not cover physical damage to the rental vehicle and in many states does not include coverage for injury to vehicle occupants. Which explains why the rental car companies provide the opportunity for the following types of supplemental coverage/insurance

None of this is to say that it's a good idea to drive without an actually decent amount of liability coverage, and collision if you need it.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2017 17:01

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Why would you bother with the 20 year policy on yourself, since the 30 year deal is so much better?

# ¿ May 2, 2017 18:25

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

I have car insurance through Traveler's, two cars for two drivers. In my policy it contains this:

code:

Vehicles        Use of Vehicle   Mileage 
1. 08 ACURA TL        Pleasure     5,294 
2. 05 ACURA 3.2TL     Pleasure     13,491

I called my agent to ask where those numbers come from and if they affect my cost, because the liability expenses on the older vehicle are higher:

code:

                              08 ACURA TL       05 ACURA 3.2TL
A. Bodily Injury
$250,000 each person
$500,000 each accident               $381                 $434

B. Property Damage
$100,000 each accident                $83                  $95

D1. Uninsured Motorists Bodily Injury
$250,000 each person
$500,000 each accident               $135                 $150

The agent insists that the mileage doesn't matter, doesn't know where it comes from, and says it has nothing to do with the difference in cost of the insurance. She blamed the price difference on the age of the vehicles - the older car being more likely to fall apart and crash I assume.

Can anyone confirm what she said? It seems weird that they would have some random mileage numbers on the policy that don't mean anything.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2017 21:08

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

stealie72 posted:

Quick life insurance question:

I need to add another term life policy to do stuff like cover more kids and a more expensive house. I'm 41, overweight without being gross (6'3", 295, more lurch than straight up fatass, but tell the BMI table that) and am in the process of losing at least 50 lbs in the next year to keep some borderline health poo poo from becoming actual health poo poo.

All things being equal, am I better off shopping for insurance being a year older and in better health, or does age outweigh (heh) health/weight on the actuarial tables?

Here is a nerdwallet page about it: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/insurance/too-fat-life-insurance/

code:

Average annual life insurance premiums for a 35-year-old man, 5�9", 
at different weights, for a 20-year, $500,000 term life policy

196 lbs.  206 lbs.   216 lbs.   226 lbs.   236 lbs.   246 lbs.
$310      $370       $412       $504       $593       $641

# ¿ Mar 16, 2018 22:38

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Jaxyon posted:

term is basically you getting nothing for paying into it for 30 years.

You get an insurance payout in the event of your death. You aren't paying "into" it you are paying "for" it.

There are about a billion articles online about why whole life is bad.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2018 19:36

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

That is the fundamental way every insurance claim I've ever seen works. If you go to an in network provider, they bill the insurance $9,000,000 for an aspirin, the insurance company says no we will give you $0.32 (and you get to go bankrupt if the insurance company claims they weren't in network after all).

I don't pay any providers until the bill they send matches what the insurance company says I should pay them, unless there is a specific reason why they don't match that I'm aware of.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2018 13:30

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Call the billing department of the physical therapists office and tell them your insurance says you should owe $48

# ¿ Oct 25, 2018 13:58

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

I am switching homeowner's insurance and have a couple goofy questions.

1. Is it worth paying for "Open Peril" coverage on personal property? It seems like any insurance company would have lawyers who would button up the list of excluded perils to make this coverage almost completely worthless so I'm not really seeing the benefit. This seems to be equivalent to upgrading from HO-3 to HO-5.

2. Is it worth paying for more than $1 million of umbrella coverage? I have seen people say to use net worth as a guide but that really glosses over a lot of specifics about assets protected from settlements (retirement accounts, home equity) so it feels like there should be a better way.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2018 23:39

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Elem7 posted:

Hoping someone familiar with accidental life insurance from the claims side may read this.

My mother passed away earlier this week while at home in bed. While this was unexpected her health isn't great so it was deemed natural causes, no autopsy was done, she was sent straight to a funeral home. I just arrived in town last night from across the country and am now being told some new information from an in home health aid that makes me strongly suspect that a pacemaker she had installed some months prior may have been malfunctioning.

Its possible the pacemaker had nothing to do with it but if it did turn out that either it failed to act when it should've, or actively harmed her, would a medical device failure like that take her death from "natural causes" to "accidental" as far as life insurance is concerned?

I tried calling the insurance company and basically got a non-answer indicating there's no way to know until a claim is actually filed. The problem is if I want to have an autopsy done it'll need to be paid for out of pocket to the tune of thousands of dollars, and quick, so it'd be nice to know if it even matters.

If the difference in payout is significant (at least >50k to be worth actually pursuing) you should consult a lawyer and see what they think. It looks like it could at best go either way in a case like this, even if the pacemaker was at fault.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1181199.html

quote:

The cause of Logan's death was not immediately determined. The original death certificate did not identify a cause of death and indicated an autopsy was pending. After conducting an autopsy, the pathologist concluded, in relevant part, �the cause of death was apparent pacemaker failure in this 5-year-old boy who was pacemaker dependent following repair of his congenital heart disease.�

The district court granted First Unum's motion for summary judgment, concluding, as a matter of law, (1) the pertinent policy language is unambiguous, and (2) Logan Pirkheim's death �did not result independently of all other causes;� therefore, �the plan administrator did not err in denying accidental death benefits to Mr. and Mrs. Pirkheim.� The district court further held the common law doctrine of reasonable expectations does not apply where, as here, an ERISA policy 1 is unambiguous. Mr. and Mrs. Pirkheim challenge each of these rulings. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. � 1291.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2019 17:15

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 05:16

Droo: Jun 25, 2003

Elem7 posted:

Looks like that case pretty open and shut as far as the courts were concerned, those people probably spent a bunch of money on lawyers for no reason which is what I'm afraid of. The policy is significant, but wouldn't radically alter my life, I suppose the emotional aspect of having it pay out and my mom having been able to leave me something after her death would be the most important thing after her financial struggles(having chronic illness's is hard).

You could bring the written policy to a well-reviewed law firm, and see if they are willing to take your case (assuming the device faulted) on a contingency basis where they only get paid if you win the accidental claim. If they say no way to a contingency fee structure, I would take that to mean I'm probably not gonna win even if the device was faulty. It seems like it might depend a lot on the exact wording of your policy.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2019 17:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Ask me about insurance!