Ok, I know I've mentioned this somewhere in my blog before but I'm gonna talk about it in detail now.
Let's start with auto insurance. I don't even know where to start.......I guess by saying this; I've been paying for it for about 28 years now. About $40,000 worth. I have used it ONCE in my life! For a $3000 fender bender a long time ago. I haven't even had a speeding ticket in over 10 years. And yet, even though I'm an impeccable driver, I am still required to have the insurance and pay insane rates. What about my other $37,000 I have given them? Why can't I just use that? Why can't I get back some of that money? What about earning interest on it? Why did my insurance rates go up almost 50% when I moved to the SF Bay Area? (Let me tell you: illegal aliens who drive here legally and don't have insurance that the rest of us have to pay for! We're force to have uninsured motorist coverage here because of the high number of uninsured drivers.)
Now, you the good driver make one mistake and have an accident. You've been paying insurance for 20 years with a perfect record. And yet, the insurance company will now INCREASE your premiums, and in some cases drop you altogether for this! Totally unfair to good, honest people. They can legally do this too. Why? Because they pay off politicians, that's why. Insurance companies are some of the most corrupt businesses around.
Another thing that kills me about the auto insurance companies is their advertising. Borderline false advertising everywhere.
Geico: (Little Gecko Dude) "My job is saving you money. I love my job."
Progressive: "15 minutes could save you thousands!"
Statefarm, Wachovia, Esurance.com and a hundred others.
I get at least a dozen letters in the mail each week from various companies all claiming they can save me money. I called or contacted every one of them folks and NOT ONE could save me a penny. NOT ONE! So the little Geico Gecko simply ISN'T doing his job at all.
Then you have your house and property insurance. Been paying for that for 26 years. NEVER used that. Some places you have to have fire hazard or flooding insurance with it. Worse, they won't even insure the poor folks who live in hurricane/earthquake areas anymore (against a disaster like that). Well, shouldn't insurance cover any kind of disaster? Isn't that what it's really for? And yet they can get away with not covering the only thing likely to cause you some loss? Does this make sense to anyone?
Then you have your PMI insurance which is another required insurance for a house you buy if you cannot put at least 20% of the value of the house as a down payment. Another way for banks and insurance companies to milk you for every dime.
Then you have your health insurance. About 20% of Americans can't even afford that! Hospitals and doctor's fees and charges are so outrageous, that the insurance companies then charge too much just for the insurance. And a lot of them won't cover the cost of fighting something serious, like cancer. Again, shouldn't it cover everything? I mean, you get screwed paying so much for insurance, then you get really sick, and the insurance won't cover it, so you get doubly screwed! Nice. A lot of doctor's fees are to cover THEIR insurance to protect them against frivolous lawsuits. (Here in this one paragraph shows why doctors, lawyers and insurance companies are in the top five on my hate list).
Then you have your life insurance. What a scam that is for the most part. You have term and whole life. Neither of which is any good. And don't let any financial advisor tell you otherwise. It's mostly crap, especially the whole life. The best you can do is just get term insurance for the bare minimum your family would need to get by on, just in case you pass away. And don't get any insurance on a non-working or far less money making spouse. My wife doesn't have life insurance for example, but I do. Have you heard some of the horror stories about people trying to get their money from these companies? Unbelievable. They will look at any excuse to not pay out! The premiums go up exponentially as you get older too. Once you have enough money saved for retirement, you should drop all life insurance at that point.
Then you got your airplane insurance. Now, this doesn't affect most of you, but let me tell you that aviation insurance companies RULE the aviation world. Since 9/11, aviation insurance has more than TRIPLED. Additionally, their requirements for covering, hiring and training pilots are ridiculous. They are far more restrictive than the FAA's own requirements and have absolutely no bearing on how skilled or good a pilot is. None whatsoever.
Let me tell you about our aviation insurance for work. To cover just the corporate plane that I fly, for one year, is much higher than the average household income of a family in the United States. Yet the chances of that plane, with me flying it, having some kind of accident is so remote it's almost immeasurable. On top of this, the insurance company (and it wouldn't matter which one it was) makes me go to some kind of yearly training for the plane. That would be fine, except the 3 day course, comprised of half systems review and half simulator training cost $11,300. That's OVER $500 an hour to be taught by a guy who may never have even flown my plane and knows LESS about it than me! And that doesn't include the flight to and from the training facility, hotel room, rental car and food! My boss went with me last time, so they got over $1000 an hour. So, to save the company money, I tried to get the insurance company to let me teach and train my boss each year (I am a certified flight instructor (CFI)) and let us hire another CFI to do my yearly training. I would supply them with a syllabus equal to or better than the one where we went, and we would do the training in our airplane which would be more practical and better for my boss. It would save a TON of money, time, inconvenience and be better overall training (I proved to them that it would be). You know what they said? NO! They actually got angry that I would even suggest such a thing. They also said, in so many words, that a CFI at one of those training centers is better than any other CFI, even if they haven't flown the airplane they are teaching! In other words, only their CFI's will do. The rest of us somehow aren't trustworthy or something, even though all CFI's live by a code of moral and ethical conduct. A person who isn't even a pilot can see through this ruse. Why do you think those training centers charge lawyer type fees for the training? Because the insurance companies make us go! They do because they can. And the insurance companies are in on it too. I guarantee it.
Think about how much you and I give away to insurance companies in our life. I don't know what the percentage is but it's quite a bit. And the only thing an honest, respectable person gets out of it is..........nothing. The insurance companies just get richer and richer..........
Would you like to start an insurance company with me? I tried. I saw how much money you could make in aviation. I figured on average, for every 10 planes you insured you would get $1,000,000 minus your business expenses (many big flight departments have that many planes alone!). And if you insured safe companies, you essentially just get to keep it! (I bet you more than 95% percent of all corporate flight departments have never had a plane crash) But the old adage "it takes money to make money" is never more true than here because you have to actually HAVE the money somewhere to cover the insurance costs in case one of their planes crashes into a Walmart one day. So if you have about $10,000,000 you can start an insurance company and make another $100,000,000 a year easily.
Anyone? Hello?
Oh well.
Feel free to post your comments on Insurance. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.
