And Medical Insurers should just stop insuring sick people! Problem solved!
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And if I have a terminal disease I guess I should also be able to purchase life insurance? These is nonsense. Businesses are in business to make a profit, If they weren't they would be out of business.
because they cannot get a handle on what price to charge, since it is such a small niche they've apparently decided is was more expeditious just to avoid covering teslas.
Waiting4M3
Active Member
Lets talk about health insurance, if every time you get some chronic illness, your insurance company can drop you, and then other insurance companies can all deny you insurance because of pre-existing condition, then what happens to all the sick people? Eventually everyone gets sick at some point. If that is the end game, why get health insurance at all?
You buy insurance as a safety net in case you need it. You dont buy car insurance after you get into an accident and expect them to pay to fix it.
Waiting4M3
Active Member
When you wreck your card, your insurance company drops you, you can always get a new car, and get new insurance. But if you're sick, you can't get a new body and get fresh insurance again. If you get sick and your insurance company drops you, you're screwed. In this respect health insurance and car insurance are completely different.
I'm not sure forcing insurance companies to insure sick people is a good solution at this moment, especially since hospitals and drug companies can price gouge all they want, pitting the insurance company and patients into a no-win situation. The real solution is some kind of price regulation, or at least transparency on medical cares and drugs prices, so patients and insurance companies can all have more clarity on what things will cost, and how to budget things. But people will scream socialism (or worse), so I'll it at that.
Its a tough call but I can tell you as someone that is self employed I pay $1550 a month for healthcare and my family is not sick but I buy insurance in case something happens to one of us in the future. That $1550 a month translates to $18,600 a year and I have a $10,000 deductible. So when someone that does not take care of themselves and never paid into insurance and then gets sick and wants insurance after the fact for free or low cost that does upset me.
In any case this post is not about healthcare and no need to make it another political post. This post was about the high repair costs on Tesla's and why insurance companies dont want to insure these vehicles. This is something that Tesla can fix and they need to be more reasonable with their repair demands. That thread I linked to earlier is a prime example of this. Not only are they overpaying for repairs the insurance company is also having to pay for rental cars for months in most cases because parts are not readily available. When people want to insure Model 3's that cost $40k but a battery replacement costs $15k and a door handle alone can cost $2000 I can see the problem getting even worse.
Waiting4M3
Active Member
I think we're pretty much in agreement, it's always a good day when you don't get into a political and health care argument.
I would like to see Tesla's design for manufacturability of M3 turn into potential automation/cost saving in repairs also. The few parts that need to be assembled, and the easier they can be assembled, should mean it's easier to repair also. Also high production volume should also translate to lower part cost. Even more, what if Tesla can put a few assembly line robots in their repair shop and do repairs without human?
I'm thinking that Hartford may be declining to insure Teslas not because of Tesla's habit of charging wildly high prices for replacement parts. (If that were the case, then Hartford would simply charge their own wildly high premiums to cover their risk.)
But that's not all an insurance company insures. They pay to repair the people, too. You know, all those medical bills to those who have been hurt in the accident. If the insured turns out to be at fault, then the insurance company pays for the victims of the other car, too. (Okay, so its state-dependent, whether there is a No-Fault law on the books, but you get the idea.)
Sure, the Model S (and presumably, the Model X) are one of the safest cars to be in if you are going to get into an accident, but its paying for the other guy that is going to get costly.
This should not be a shock of revelation to anyone.
Now, lets install an autopilot into the Model S (or X) and let it loose on the streets. If there is ever any case where an autopilot-equipped Tesla gets into an accident, lawsuits are going to get MUCH uglier. It won't matter whether the autopilot was operating or not. The lawyers will be there like ants at a picnic. I think we've already seen a couple of them.
("You admit that you weren't driving the car? And you expect that other people will believe that this isn't your fault?")
You may have survived the accident, but after the lawsuit, you'll probably think you didn't and have landed in Hell.
And we all know that its the unknown variable of the juries' decisions that can cause the insurance losses to really start racking up.
So, to me, it seems that Hartford is simply deciding to take a timeout on this autopilot thing, and wait for:
(A) autopilots to get better and become a non-issue, or
(B) wait until Hartford determines -- through the misadventures of other insurance companies who have to wade through lawsuit after lawsuit of Tesla-owning clients -- how much they should be charging for this kind of risk.
-- Ardie
Do I smell brimstone?
But that's not all an insurance company insures. They pay to repair the people, too. You know, all those medical bills to those who have been hurt in the accident. If the insured turns out to be at fault, then the insurance company pays for the victims of the other car, too. (Okay, so its state-dependent, whether there is a No-Fault law on the books, but you get the idea.)
Sure, the Model S (and presumably, the Model X) are one of the safest cars to be in if you are going to get into an accident, but its paying for the other guy that is going to get costly.
This should not be a shock of revelation to anyone.
Now, lets install an autopilot into the Model S (or X) and let it loose on the streets. If there is ever any case where an autopilot-equipped Tesla gets into an accident, lawsuits are going to get MUCH uglier. It won't matter whether the autopilot was operating or not. The lawyers will be there like ants at a picnic. I think we've already seen a couple of them.
("You admit that you weren't driving the car? And you expect that other people will believe that this isn't your fault?")
You may have survived the accident, but after the lawsuit, you'll probably think you didn't and have landed in Hell.
And we all know that its the unknown variable of the juries' decisions that can cause the insurance losses to really start racking up.
So, to me, it seems that Hartford is simply deciding to take a timeout on this autopilot thing, and wait for:
(A) autopilots to get better and become a non-issue, or
(B) wait until Hartford determines -- through the misadventures of other insurance companies who have to wade through lawsuit after lawsuit of Tesla-owning clients -- how much they should be charging for this kind of risk.
-- Ardie
Do I smell brimstone?
It's easier to say "We don't insure that vehicle, sorry" and try to retain the business of the customer, than it is to say "I insure that vehicle, and its triple your current coverage"... that would cause them to shop around and eventually leave.
That's pure speculation, but I'm betting some analytics department came up with the numbers about churn, related to Tesla quotes. Hell, thats why I left Allstate after 10 years 7 cars and a house...
That's pure speculation, but I'm betting some analytics department came up with the numbers about churn, related to Tesla quotes. Hell, thats why I left Allstate after 10 years 7 cars and a house...
Insurance companies are just whiney banks that find ways say "no" to their customers when they need them. Or worse, ask tax payers to step in when they can't payout.
They are outdated and need to die. Spreading the risk over more people is the solution. We all need it for health and our cars, so "free-market" business practices don't apply.
If there was one customer-base that could take a slightly higher deductible or premium, (solution) it would be the Luxury car market. Let alone top tier Luxory cars like Masarati, Ferrari, Bugatti, Tesla etc.
Maybe Teslas are too iconic to burry in subprime coverage riders with paper-based entities.
They are outdated and need to die. Spreading the risk over more people is the solution. We all need it for health and our cars, so "free-market" business practices don't apply.
If there was one customer-base that could take a slightly higher deductible or premium, (solution) it would be the Luxury car market. Let alone top tier Luxory cars like Masarati, Ferrari, Bugatti, Tesla etc.
Maybe Teslas are too iconic to burry in subprime coverage riders with paper-based entities.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
So... they seem to be ignoring the fact that the NHTSA has found that Teslas with autopilot are 40% less likely to have an accident.
I pointed that stat out to my Farmers agent and asked about when and how much Farmers was going to discount my Tesla insurance now that autopilot is reducing crash rates - never got a response from him of any kind. And this agent I and family members have done business with for over 30 years - insure a ton of things through him. I think he genuinely doesn't know what to say.
I think that the majority of people have little grasp of how insurance was supposed to work, health care insurance in the US is no longer insurance, it is a spread the costs of your coverage among a wider pool of people.
I don't think that you understand that your agent is really just a salesman, he knows little about the underwriting policies of the firm and what justifies their decisions.
Kenriko
Former Vendor
My wife needs to get MRIs pretty often because she had a tumor years ago that went away but they need to check on.
Cash price for a MRI if you call around is about $500.
Cost for MRI in a hospital is ~$10,000, You might be able to get them to do a cash price for $3-4k.
If you use insurance with the hospital MRI the insurance will get a $9500 *contracted* discount and you as the patient will be charged $500 copay.
The whole system is a scam. The threat of a high bill is what keeps people paying premiums (and now taxes from government mandate) Hospitals should be required to charge exactly the same rate to insurance companies that they bill to individuals paying cash. If insurance companies had to pay the same rate they would pressure the hospitals to lower the prices (cost + sane profit margin) and you would be able to get the same deal paying cash.
Farm Bureau Insurance won't take on my Tesla either. They said that they stopped writing new coverage for Tesla beginning January if this year because of the long wait for parts and parts cost. I have a feeling that Tesla insurance rates will sky rocket.
jeffro01
Active Member
Insurance has been, and will continue to be, highly localized and varies wildly from person to person, location to location, etc...
I don't think the sky is falling quite as drastically as some here seem to think...
Jeff
I don't think the sky is falling quite as drastically as some here seem to think...
Jeff
cpa
Active Member
We are in California. Hartford is our auto and home insurance company. When we added the Tesla to our auto policy, we received a congratulatory form letter from Hartford. Our premiums are quite reasonable.
My late brother-in-law owned the agency that we used to get insurance. This agency is one of the largest in California. I wonder if the fact that this agency writes so much business for Hartford had something to do with this.
Of course as was stated upstream, insurance companies assess risk from state-to-state, and there could be other reasons why certain companies decline to cover certain autos in those states.
My late brother-in-law owned the agency that we used to get insurance. This agency is one of the largest in California. I wonder if the fact that this agency writes so much business for Hartford had something to do with this.
Of course as was stated upstream, insurance companies assess risk from state-to-state, and there could be other reasons why certain companies decline to cover certain autos in those states.
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