Alternate Automobile Insurance

There ought to be an insurance product — for all I know maybe there is? — which covers all costs of automobile ownership. Not only accident insurance, but maintenance. Oil changes, belt replacements, the occasional head gasket.

The insurance would get more expensive every year you own your car. Eventually the cost of insuring an older car would reach the point where the owner is money ahead trading it in, and getting a new car with a 5-year warranty.

Certain unreliable foreign jalopies would cost more to insure than a boring Honda Civic.

Cars in the Midwest where they salt the roads in the wintertime would cost more to insure than in California.

With the risk spread across many customers it ought to be possible to offer this insurance at just above the average COO. Those without oodles of cash would find advantage to not having unexpected bills.

There are a lot of extended warranty policies, which is what it sounds like you're talking about.

I see ads for home appliance insurance. Not sure if it’s on a sliding scale based on the age of the appliances.

It should be.

_Howard wrote:

There are a lot of extended warranty policies, which is what it sounds like you're talking about.

Not at all what I described.

Edmunds.com wrote:

As a rule, extended warranties do not cover scheduled maintenance items such as oil changes, timing belt replacements or tune-ups. Most extended warranties don't cover items that wear out, such as brake pads and windshield wipers.

You should have married a mechanic.

“Maintenance insurance” would have a couple of good side benefits.

• would tend to get older, less safe cars off the road
  
• Would boost the sale of new cars
  
• Would favor the sale of cars with better maintenance records, getting specialty poorly-made cars (Hummers, exotics, performance cars) off the road
  
• Reduce bankruptcies of auto shops from uncollectable bills
  

Would have at least one major disadvantage.

• Like health insurance, it puts a third party between the consumer and the service provider, trying to determine if a procedure is necessary or cost-effective

Car repair insurance does focus on breakdowns. The idea is to protect you from large unexpected expenditures. I think they believe you should be budgeting for scheduled maintenance, without adding the overhead of an insurance company. I mean, if you are prepared to spend x dollars per month for "maintenance insurance", you could just set aside x dollars per month in a bank account and have it all available to pay the mechanic.

Yeah. That's true of Trumpcare Health Insurance too.

Does Trumpcare actually exist?

I just don't see how any insurance scheme can help the people paying in as long as its owners are seeking profits as their focal point.

Insurance pays off if you actually get to use it heavily. For example, health insurance, even the pretty crappy kind, is well worth it if you get truly fucked up and need to spend a week or 12 in hospital, and the insurance really comes through and pays almost all the bill. Car insurance can be really helpful if you seriously damage your car and an innocent bystander. What the insurance companies want is people that don't make a claim - health insurance for people who never get sick, car insurance for people who never have an accident. That way, the company collects your premiums and doesn't have to pay anything out.

But your underlying point is quite accurate. Sarah Palin scored a propaganda victory by saying ACA would introduce "death panels" In fact, that was pretty much the opposite of the truth. The death panels do exist, and they have existed for a long time -  in the insurance companies. Any government health scheme will have bureaucrats whose job is to get the customer appropriate care. Private insurance companies have employees whose only job is to find ways to deny you coverage - those are the real death panels. And whatever happens, the money to pay all those insurance company staff comes from the consumer.