this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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[โ€“] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 years ago (14 children)

I work in the insurance industry and I 100% agree with this.

The only time it's wise to take out an insurance policy is when

A) It's legally required (though this is sometimes due to lobbying by the insurance companies themselves)

B) When you absolutely will not be able to actually pay for a potential, but necessary expense by yourself (cancer treatments and stuff like that)

So Health Insurance, Auto Insurance (even if your car is cheap and self-insurable, the car you hit may not be), Home-owners insurance and stuff like that are necessary and generally a good financial bet, even if they are crooked af.

Any "micro-insurances" though? All total scams. Travel insurance, phone insurance (or "Extended Warranties"), Apple Care, all that kind of shit is 100% going to cost you more money to have than it'll save you - unless you get really really lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it). You'd be better off spending what you'd pay on those insurance premiums on a hand of blackjack, I'll bet the odds would be slightly more in your favor that way

[โ€“] Wanderer@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Travel insurance is my big one. Why would you not get that? That seems like such a stupid risk not to get that.

Like if I get hit by a car in the middle of nowhere and they got to fly my home because the medical care there sucks. That's going to cost an absolute fortune. Even having to send my dead body home will cost my family loads.

[โ€“] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Why would you not get that? That seems like such a stupid risk not to get that.

Pretty much for all the reasons I said in my comment - you'll almost certainly spend more on premiums for travel insurance than you'll ever claim (this is true of all insurance) and the expenses incurred by self-insuring are generally manageable. Even in the two situations you refer to, we're "only" talking about costs of a few thousand, and both of those are highly unlikely events that most people go their whole lives not dealing with. you're much better off putting the money you'd spend on that travel insurance into an emergency fund to cover those kinds of unexpected expenses.

Insurance is only a good financial call if you risk completely bankrupting yourself by not having insurance, otherwise you're just trading potential lump sum costs for small continuous costs, and the premiums will generally always wind up being more than what you're saving (because if they weren't, then the Insurance companies wouldn't be making so much money).

That being said, it's your money, if you'd rather accept that you're paying more over a lifetime on travel insurance than you're saving just to have the peace of mind that you won't have to dip into savings for any incident that happens before or during the trip (assuming your incident doesn't fall under one of the many carefully crafted exclusions that the insurance companies add to their policies to prevent paying out, which it probably will), then by all means, buy it - but if you're buying it because you think it's the financially savy move, and you have at least a few grand in your bank account for emergencies, then you're kidding yourself.

[โ€“] ElHexo@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago

When you say travel insurance, are you thinking of overseas medical expenses?

I cut my foot on some rocks in the US and that insurance claim paid for all the previous travel insurance I'd taken out previously.

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