Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 12:11:06 -0400
Reply-To: Allan Streib <streib@CS.INDIANA.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Allan Streib <streib@CS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Legendary Tardis-Classic Car insurance for Westies?
In-Reply-To: <4A7701BC.8090305@charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I'd sooo much like to respond to this but I read it a couple of times and ... nope.... NVC in this post at all.
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:26 -0500, "John Rodgers" <inua@CHARTER.NET> wrote:
> Don,
>
> You are pretty much on target here. Insurance companies are by their
> very nature organized and designed to make money off of managing risk -
> and the nano-second the numbers show that you, the so called "customer"
> ,are not going to be productive and lucrative and profitable for their
> purposes you get axed in one way or another. And - dare I say it - this
> same thing parallels the health insurance debate that is going on
> nationally right now. When the numbers show a "client" moves into the
> "no-profit zone" the insurance companies dump you out - one way or
> another. Raise the rates so high you can't pay, or refuse you coverage
> due to "prior" conditions, and the list goes on. Bottom line: Risk
> management for the Corporate bottom line profits. The health insurance
> thing and the automobile insurance thing works the same way - as each
> gets older - you - and your car - the less protection you are able to
> get because the risk to corporate profits increases - and
> numerically/statistically there comes a point where insurance companies
> are better rid of you because you are about to cost them money - and
> they are not going to put up with that. From a health insurance
> standpoint, this is what pees me off about insurance companies. They
> will milk you for profits when you are young, in your prime, and not
> likely to need any serious medical care, then when you need them they
> aren't there - at least for the most part. This is why I support a
> national health insurance. All the insurance companies blow a lot of
> smoke about socialized medicine as a scare tactic to prevent this from
> happening, but we already have a partial one in place that has been
> operational for 43 years. It's called medicare - and it works pretty
> good. But you have to be age 65 to qualify. And by the way - Medicare is
> note free insurance - everyone on it pays a monthly insurance premium of
> a bit over $100/month taken right out of retirement checks by the
> treasury department - and that is after paying into medicare during a
> lifetime of work.. If national budgets were managed well, that coverage
> could be extended to cover everyone and it would force insurance
> companies to be one heck of a lot more competitive, driving the prices
> down. As for auto insurance - not sure what could be done there. But
> there are steps one could take. Liability insurance - ya gotta have it.
> Takes care of the other fellow if you screw up, or a court deems you
> have screwed up - whether you did in fact or not. Then there is the
> protection of your own vehicle against loss. As our vehicles age - same
> as our bodies - and the insurance companies see less and less value in
> our vehicles or our bodies - it becomes more and more a matter of self
> reliance. You cannot at that point contract with a company to assume
> your risk. Once you get my age (70) it's a bit late to set up special
> savings or IRA's to cover your risks over time, but if you are young or
> even have children you can set things up for them - and that money will
> be there to cover such things as vehicle liability, comprehensive and
> loss, as well as health issues. . But to try and buy insurance to cover
> such major items as complete vehicle loss or some major health break -
> it's not going to happen if you and your vehicle have aged to the point
> of being outside the profit envelope of the insurance companies
> actuarial tables.
>
> My $0.02 for today.
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL Driver - with insurance issues
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