Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

maxmautner.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 79 posts

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#11

Post by quickthrowman »

graemep wrote: post #6

That is tiny. I just checked Uk legislation and it seems to require £1.2m cover for damage to property and unlimited cover for personal injury and deaths.

I have $500,000 in coverage for bodily injury liability and $100,000 for property damage and I feel like that’s not enough but those are the highest options to select for coverage.

I’d prefer to be covered at double those amounts in case of some crazy and unlikely scenario like getting in an accident with a G Wagon where the other driver dies. There’s also $40M aggregate of personal injury protection.

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#12

Post by stouset »

quickthrowman wrote: post #11
graemep wrote: post #6

That is tiny. I just checked Uk legislation and it seems to require £1.2m cover for damage to property and unlimited cover for personal injury and deaths.

I have $500,000 in coverage for bodily injury liability and $100,000 for property damage and I feel like that’s not enough but those are the highest options to select for coverage. I’d prefer to be covered at double those amounts in case of some crazy and unlikely scenario like getting in an accident with a G Wagon where the other driver dies. There’s also $40M aggregate of personal injury protection.

Umbrella insurance is intended to give you coverage in excess of those numbers.

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#13

Post by hnburnsy »

There is a program in California that offers even lower limits...

The California Low Cost Auto Insurance (CLCA) program provides liability coverage limits of up to $10,000 for bodily injury or death per person, $20,000 per accident, and $3,000 for property damage. This program is designed to help income-eligible residents afford basic auto insurance.

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#14

Post by [deleted] »

hnburnsy wrote: post #13

There is a program in California that offers even lower limits... The California Low Cost Auto Insurance (CLCA) program provides liability coverage limits of up to $10,000 for bodily injury or death per person, $20,000 per accident, and $3,000 for property damage. This program is designed to help income-eligible residents afford basic auto insurance.

[deleted]

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#15

Post by quickthrowman »

MattGaiser wrote: post #10
Gibbon1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something people that bitch about the high cost of California vs Florida won't mention is how high auto and home owners insurance is in Florida. Florida is a high risk state with a lot of fraud.

A lot of this was self inflicted by Florida. Between their roofing coverage laws and their attorney fee laws, suing for new roofs was basically free, so everyone and their dog did it.

“Nub City” is a nickname for Vernon, Florida where the residents ended up filing far more dismemberment insurance claims for amputated limbs than was statistically likely, the town of 500-800 people was the source of 2/3rds of the claims against the policies at one point. Insurance companies stopped writing dismemberment insurance policies in the area.

> Vernon gained infamy in the late 1950s and early 1960s due to the improbably high percentage of residents who made insurance claims for lost limbs, leading to an investigation of whether residents of the city were intentionally dismembering themselves for the insurance money. These insurance claims from Vernon, with a population of 500 to 800, accounted for as many as 2/3 of claims nationally, but there was no way of proving that any particular amputation was deliberate.[9] This led to Vernon being referred to as "nub city" during this period. In 1980, Errol Morris attempted to make a documentary about this phenomenon, but after being threatened by city residents and physically attacked by one, he changed the focus of the film, resulting in the 1981 documentary film Vernon, Florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_Florida

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_Florida_(film)

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#16

Post by toomuchtodo »

stouset wrote: post #12
quickthrowman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have $500,000 in coverage for bodily injury liability and $100,000 for property damage and I feel like that’s not enough but those are the highest options to select for coverage. I’d prefer to be covered at double those amounts in case of some crazy and unlikely scenario like getting in an accident with a G Wagon where the other driver dies. There’s also $40M aggregate of personal injury protection.

Umbrella insurance is intended to give you coverage in excess of those numbers.

You can get $3M-$5M in personal liability umbrella coverage (“plup”) for under $1k/year, but have to max out the underlying policy limits first.

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#17

Post by deepsun »

lostlogin wrote: post #7
kube-system wrote: post #3

You basically need to insure yourself when using US roads. Forget the ridiculous minimum coverage requirements, a huge percentage of Americans drive around with no insurance whatsoever -- 20% or more in some states.

> Forget the ridiculous minimum coverage requirements, a huge percentage of Americans drive around with no insurance whatsoever Here in New Zealand you aren’t required to have insurance at all, although every gets healthcare and lost wages paid for (ACC) in cases of injury, which is a kind of insurance.

Who pays for that?

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#18

Post by treetalker »

MattGaiser wrote: post #10
Gibbon1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something people that bitch about the high cost of California vs Florida won't mention is how high auto and home owners insurance is in Florida. Florida is a high risk state with a lot of fraud.

A lot of this was self inflicted by Florida. Between their roofing coverage laws and their attorney fee laws, suing for new roofs was basically free, so everyone and their dog did it.

“Free” if you won, meaning the insurer should have covered but refused and forced the insured to litigate, and part of the remedy was reimbursement of reasonable attorney fees. So, in other words, insurer at fault. That fostered a lively market of attorneys willing to take cases on contingency.

Of course, all that is in the past with the GOP legislature’s big changes to the statutes and DeSantis’s appointment of pro-insurer judges throughout the state.

Now, when Hurricane Paco does tear your roof off; soaks and destroys all your homelab Hoppers; and your insurer denies what should be a no-brainer claim because … well, just because it can, you often have to come out of pocket to pay a lawyer for the lengthy litigation — at precisely the time that you are probably even more cash-strapped than usual.

Re: Killing with a car costs $1.6M, California requires drivers to carry $30K

#19

Post by deepsun »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #8
kube-system wrote: post #3

You basically need to insure yourself when using US roads. Forget the ridiculous minimum coverage requirements, a huge percentage of Americans drive around with no insurance whatsoever -- 20% or more in some states.

Something people that bitch about the high cost of California vs Florida won't mention is how high auto and home owners insurance is in Florida. Florida is a high risk state with a lot of fraud.

Yet at the same time federal government allowed home insurance to be non-actuarial (aka insolvent) for natural disasters like hurricanes. So essentially the rest of the country subsidise residents in disaster-prone areas. So Californians pay to make home insurance lower for Floridians.
Post reply on HN