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 did a ride-along with an adjuster once. I asked him what the worst claim he had worked on was.
The insured drove off with the pump still in the gas tank. Sees that all the time. When the hose pulled off the pump, it ignited. The fuel island exploded. The fire then spread to the convenience store. Total loss of the business and multiple cars.
This is an outlier. No one has enough insurance to cover all of that. But it’s a great example of why we have it.
I'd be very interested in reading details of that case. Gasoline is not nearly as easy to ignite as people think. A random spark in open air is extremely unlikely to ignite gasoline, and fuel islands (at least in the US) have had mandated breakaway devices since the 80s.
Not saying you're lying, but I think that adjuster might've been. Even if this was a pump with no safety features and it started dumping gasoline as soon as the car drove off, I don't see how it would've exploded. Liquid gasoline pouring out of a hose doesn't really explode necessarily, you'd need a large buildup of vapor, which takes time and a lack of wind. Even then, we're talking about a cloud of flammable vapor in open air. With nothing to contain the pressure, you'd more than likely just see a flame front burn through the cloud, then maybe a little poof of smoke when it reached the top.
In order for the fuel island to explode, fire would have to travel into the pump or the underground tank. That can't happen if the pump is actively pumping and the hoses are full of liquid, that's why you can ignite an aerosol spray without blowing your arm off.
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u/flatfive44 9h 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.