its a MLM, just like health insurance. theres no guaranteed they will cover your cost in damages some of the time.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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And the best part is it's mandatory!
Gotta pay the capitalism toll.
Well, only the liability part and that sorta makes sense
So the person who hit you and totaled your car can hire a lawyer and sue the shit out of you, which your insurance will settle out of court for an undisclosed sum, and they get to walk away with the money, you get Jack shit, and to top it all off, you don't even have a fucking car anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of insurance when it comes to 1000+ lbs death machines that go barreling down the road at speeds faster than the fastest land animals as part of normal usage, while packing more kinetic energy than a high caliber bullet.
.... It's just... Those laws aren't there for you, they're there to protect the rich. After all, you might hit their Porsche with your Honda, and they don't want to pay for that.
If mandatory liability insurance existed for the sake of Porsches, the madatory maximum would be enough to cover a Porche. Then they wouldnt have to go to the trouble of suing you.
I mean if they hit you, then their insurance pays. Maybe it's different on your continent though.
If someone with money hits you, your vehicle, or even your life, has a value that is predetermined by the insurance companies by whatever policy you get.
The middle and upper class can afford comprehensive insurance so if they are found at fault for hitting you then they still get a payout.
If you hit them, they get a payout.
If you're poor and can only afford liability insurance, your best hope is that someone is found to be at fault for hitting you, and you get a payout. If you hit someone else, you get jack shit, and they get a payout.
The fact is, they are unlikely to be found at fault, since the rich and powerful have long since paid off the cops who write the incident reports. So if they're at fault, then the record says nobody is at fault. But if they can spin it so that you're at fault, then you're at fault.
Honestly, it's the main reason I own a two channel dashcam. I don't want to get fucked by some rich asshole, who lied to the police to make a collision seem like I'm at fault. If I'm genuinely at fault, then fuck me I guess. I can accept that I fucked up.
I try to look at this shit from all angles, and all I ever see is that the ones that always win, is the insurance companies. 10 out of 10 times, and the rich bastards with the best insurance policies come in second place. The rest of us are a distant third, we stand to lose the most and gain the least, even if things are in our favor.
The dash cam is a great idea always.
Anyway, my original point was that nobody is forcing you to insure yourself, only the danger you can pose to other people on the road. Because people seemed salty that insurance is mandatory. And at least where I come from, liability insurance is very cheap compared to full coverage.
Funny enough, if somebody offers you insurance that builds cash value, even though the sound of it does make sense you should probably run.
I've never heard of this. Why should I run?
The price of insurance only covers the statistically predicted amount of payoffs to all people insured plus a profit. If you're building a cash value, then that's priced in, with more profit priced in for them on the equity youve built. You're better off pocketing the difference.
Right, I would assume it’s an investment vehicle with the extra margin built in. This is why insurance should only be in the largest pools with no profit interference and only the lowest administrative overhead possible.
Any guesses as to how much money would be in the pool if every person in your country paid into a single pool for automotive insurance? I bet that if such a pool existed, then there would be a lot of motivation to use that money to reduce the risk of paying out. Which makes me wonder if public transit is better in countries with national health insurance as a result of the national health insurance.
In BC, Canada, auto insurance is managed by the government. We have low insurance rates to begin with, and then we get a cheque in the mail at the end of the year if they collect more premiums than they pay out. (It's not a straight annual thing, of course. I don't know the details, but over the longer term it's how it works.)
It's kinda weird not having any sales pressure, too. They aren't at all light about upselling extra features. I only just found out that for ~$30/yr, I can add replacement car coverage to my plan. Over a lifetime, that's like $2K to never need to worry about a collision leaving you unable to drive for more than like a day to get a rental.
Didn't always have cheap insurance. The government before this one looted that extra auto insurance pool money to put into the general coffers so that they could claim the budget was in the black instead of the red, rather than send it back to people, and they charged like 50-100% more for insurance to begin with.
German here, the answer is no. Our public transit is crumbling left and right. Our health insurance too though. Serves us right for voting conservatives into power again and again for the last 30 years.
I have to imagine the tail wags the dog both ways in that scenario. Better public transport feeds into better public health outcomes, and nationalised healthcare (should) have a vested interest in reducing auto reliance for myriad reasons.
How insurance should work: Disasters are unpredictable, are bound to happen and can be very expensive to resolve. So instead of each individual risking bankruptcy for participating in a system, everybody pools together money at a much lower individual cost. That money goes toward a statistical guarantee that the cost of any disaster will be covered.
How insurance actually works (under capitalism): For-profit companies use every tool at their disposal, regardless of ethics or legality, in order to take as much of your money as they can possibly get away with while simultaneously paying out as little as they can possibly get away with, and then pocket the difference.
The province I'm in has socialized car insurance through a crown corporation. We all pay relatively the same rate, and there are discount tiers applied based on years of experience. If they have a good year of low payouts we get rebate cheques because its not a profit corp.
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Why people think first part is great for insurance, but when somebody wants to scale that up its suddenly horrible socialism.
America basically has socialised healthcare already. It's just funneled through a 3rd party first, who jack up prices. Where do they think those premiums are going?
"When you pay the government, you're paying for other people's care. The taxes will go up when more people use and abuse the system and probably won't even be used for healthcare, and will just be used for something equally unimportant to me like feeding someone elses children in a state I don't even live in. When I pay a private insurance company, I'm only paying for me. The rates only go up when the insurance company deems it necessary. The profits go to the people that really deserve it, you know? The hard working executives.
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Its like gambling, I bet 100 bucks something will happen to my car this month. Damn nothing happened, lost again.
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I used to be with a mutual insurance, which was still actually a mutual insurance, meaning the customers were also the shareholders. I got a small dividend most years out of whatever surplus existed.
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Liability insurance: legally required.
Also liability insurance: costs hundreds and the price gets jacked up every few months because fuck you.
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And if you don't pay it you can't legally drive a car.
I repeat, YOU ARE REQUIRED BY LAW TO GIVE A CORPORATION MONEY IN RETURN FOR NOTHING IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN SOCIETY
Car insurance is a fucking scam.
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The idea is when everyone pays into insurance the collective fund is used to pay for the costs any individual wouldn’t.
Thankfully accidents or thefts don’t happen to everyone, but if they do you usually get more out than you put in (personal liability is usually millions of dollars, nobody puts that much in individually).
Where this goes wrong is when fraud happens or insurance companies are incentivized to manipulate rates to increase their profits.
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I have to wait to get hit???
I'm guessing she hasn't figured out the concept of insurance fraud...
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