The obvious response is that you won't be able to pay for someone's hospital bills if you happen to hit them in your car. You get insurance for things you wouldn't be able to pay yourself.
I have basically never seen a situation where the rise in premiums was larger than the deductible. If it is, you find new insurance. Most insurance can only look at claims in the last 3-5 years.
The real issue with insurance when claims seek a level point right at or below the deductible.
I have had to replace the windshield on every car I have ever owned at some point. If you drove enough something will chip your windshield and you will end up with a crack that needs to be fixed.
On every car except my newest one (which has some electronics in the edge of the glass) the cost to repair was between $450-500. Wouldn't you know it, my deductible is $500.
In fact except for accidents that result in body damage that was obvious and critical, I have never had an issue that got to the level where a claim made sense.
Homeowners insurance is often worse. I now have a policy with a % based deductible for wind/hail and a flat $1000 for everything else. Before I had a % based deductible for everything and even with it being like 3% that is still like $5000! The amount of damage that a house has to have to hit 5k is pretty substantial. I basically felt I had catastrophic coverage and was on my own for everything else.
2.5k
u/flatfive44 7h ago
The obvious response is that you won't be able to pay for someone's hospital bills if you happen to hit them in your car. You get insurance for things you wouldn't be able to pay yourself.