Re: Insurance

[tabbypurr]

in a lot of cases you're better off putting the cost of insurance into a savings account.

[Chris J Dixon]

Indeed! Since insurers generally are solvent, they pay out less than they take in premiums, therefore, on average, the punter loses.

It is all down to the size of the risk. I wouldn't want to cover the cost of a car or house, but am happy to take my chance on a TV or washing machine.

Chris

[tabbypurr]

Yep. And it's not just the simple payout risk, premiums also include business premises phonelines, websites etc staff wages, golden handshakes etc taxes profits advertising and so on. So when you can bear the loss, not insuring is massively in your favour.

Insuring household appliances is best left to people that don't know what they're doing. It makes zero sense.

NT

[Scott]

My father used to say you should only insure what you cannot afford and extended that to say you should choose a high excess (or self-insure the first part, as he put it). .

[ss]

Which is pretty much what we do, we had a good look around the house and decided what was worth stealing and what we wouldnt miss. So for contents had the basic minimum + one diamond ring, didnt take emergency plumber cover, I know how to turn off at mains which is all a plumber will do during the night. There were other things as well (cant remember as wife deals with it) and we reduced the cost quite a bit, my wife goes through it with them item by item.

Car ins the usual switching and getting quotes to reduce costs.

[Steve Walker]

Insuring household appliances pretty well never makes sense. When you add up the insurance costs of all of them, you can just pay to replace whichever item breaks and still be in pocket. OF course, if you can actually fix it yourself, you are really quids in.

SteveW