What insurance would you carry on this car?

[Shugardrawers]

I just made the final payment on our car It's a 2000 Kia Sephia. We are no longer required to carry full coverage on it and since it's blue booked at about $2500 it's certainly not worth it to do so. Dh says to just carry liability now but I'm concerned about that. If something happens we don't have the cash to run right out and get another car. Isn't there something in between that will pay the actual value of the car? And shouldn't that be a LOT cheaper now?

Our plan is to continue driving this car for 2 more years, putting the amount of our payments in savings each month then using that for a down payment on a new car. I just don't want to see us scrambling to come up with the money if there's an accident. I mean, it's not worth much but it's $2500 I'd rather not cough up if I had to. What to do?

 

[Tiggeroo]

I don't know. I'm driving a 98 MustangGT. Currently I have only liability but i'm seriously considering upping to full due to the high repair cost for this vehicle. I believe my book value is around 4500. It would depend on how much the full coverage is. If you are going to be paying an extra 1500. per year like I would it would probably be a bad deal.

 

[EthansMom]

Call and ask your insurance co./agent what the difference would be to drop comprehensive.

I've always read that it doesn't pay to keep the comprehensive coverage on an older car so I asked my ins. agent about dropping the comprehensive coverage on our 99 Corolla. Turned out that the difference was so little that it really wasn't worth dropping the comprehensive... I can't remember how much, maybe $50 a year?

You may also want to look into raising your deductible (the amount you would pay in case of accident). We saved quite a bit off our policy costs when we switched from a $500 to $1000 deductible. If your deductible is currently $500, then you could probably afford to be out another $500 ($1000-$500)more than you could afford to be out another $2000 ($2500-$500).

We also don't have rental car coverage or window replacement coverage. The one time we had a window replaced, it only cost us $150. And I could get a budget rental car for about $150 a week. So there doesn't seem to be much reason for us to pay for insurance on these items.

 

[Christine]

Dropping the comprehensive doesn't always save you as much as you think (I just dropped this comp. on my DH's truck and we only have liability now--I was disappointed I didn't get a bigger savings).

Anyway, what you really need to look at is not the value of the car, but what kind of "dire straits" would you be in if the Kia was totalled? Would you *have* to go out and get another car right away? Would you have the money to do that (at least for a down payment)?

We went to liability on my DH's truck because it had become our third vehicle (we were trying to sell it). If it got totalled, we would not be replacing it as we don't need a third vehicle, so I dropped the insurance.

So, call your agent first and find out what the premium difference is and then think about if you would need money from an insurance payout to replace the car if you had to.

 

[eyeoreismyhero]

I have a commuter car that is worth probably $1,500.00. I have the liability and the comprehensive with no collision. The comp. was so cheap it made no sense to drop it. The collision was what was so expensive.

 

[malibuconlee]

We keep full coverage on my1996 cavalier. It's been paid off for years, but it's worth more than Blue Book to us because it's a very reliable car.

I was backed into last summer and the damage was over $2,000. I was concerned that their insurance would total the car and we'd have to buy a new one with payments we just didn't want. Thankfully they just paid for the damages.

 

[Chicago526]

I keep full insurance on my '98 Saturn. The insurance so cheap ($50 a month) that I figure it's worth it, because I just KNOW the day I drop it is when I get run over by a dump truck. And I need my car, DH could technically drive me to/from work but it would be a huge hassle. We could do it for a week or two, but not forever. If it were totaled I'd take my insurance check and buy as nice a used car as I could with the money.

 

[rt2dz]

I never carry less than full coverage including uninsured motorist (used that twice). Partially because I've never had a complete junker and partially because it just isn't that much cheaper. And like I've said, twice an uninsured motorist has ran a stop sign, hit me and well, you know...

 

[Shugardrawers]

This is my thinking too. The car may not be worth much but the $80 a month we pay for insurance on 2 cars (Dh has only liability on his 98 Suzuki) is much easier to come up with than would be a down payment and 5 years of payments on a new car if this one were totalled. My FIL says to drop all but liability and put the savings into an account to use in case we need to replace the car. Problem is, A) we are not good savers. With my health there is ALWAYS something we need to find money for and B) what if we drop the comprehensive and tomorrow it's totalled? It wouldn't be a big deal if we had $5000 sitting around earning interest but we don't.

The car is only in fair condition cosmetically but good mechanically and it should last another couple of years with no real problems. I really want to be in a better spot finacially before we take on 5 more years of payments on a new one. We may be paying for nothing but I'd sleep a lot better at night knowing there's some sort of back up available to us.

 

[froglady]

We went to liability on my DH's truck because it had become our third vehicle (we were trying to sell it). If it got totalled, we would not be replacing it as we don't need a third vehicle, so I dropped the insurance.

So, call your agent first and find out what the premium difference is and then think about if you would need money from an insurance payout to replace the car if you had to.

This is when I drop the collison, and just carry liability. I just donated my "spare" 20 year old clunker after vandals shot out all the windows (which "totaled" the car), so we're looking at new cars, and the 13 year old will be the spare clunker. We drive our cars until they die.

 

[Tiggeroo]

I live in NJ, the state with the highest car insurance prices. That's our problem. The other thing you need to find out is what your insurance company would actually consider the payout value of your car. It's not always bluebook. So check that. My sil had been carrying full coverage on her 98 minivan. She just found out that the insurance value on it is 750.

 

[mickeyfan2]

I would carry comprehensive with $0 deductible and collision with $1000 deductible.

 

[Shugardrawers]

Just talked with our insurance agent. To go from comprehensive to liability only and keeping our $500 deductible will only save us $27.77 a month. If I took my FIL's advice about putting that into an emergency account of our own it would take 6 years to have an amount equal to what State Farm would pay us for the car to be totaled He says they would pay out at or very near what Kelly Blue Book values the car at. Sounds to me like it's well worth it in our particular case to keep the coverage we currently have. The agent was suprisingly candid when he said if you have the means to easily and quickly get and pay for a new car it's not worth it to keep the comprehensive on a paid off vehicle. Right now I think it would just be too much of a hardship to cough up a down payment and without a down the monthly payments would be significantly higher. Now I just have to convince Dh which is a whole other ballgame!