Originally Posted by
footprints
That's good. My wife had a small (< $500) fender bender in a school parking lot last year which was our first accident ever on our policy (5 years+) and even though we are multi-line policy holders, etc., they still raised our rates.
For exactly this reason, people will often either not bother to file a claim (if it is a single car accident) or, if at fault, offer to pay the other driver's costs out of their own pocket (or just give them some cash on the spot to forget about it). My state has a "safe driver point" system which influences your rates, and an accident gives you "bad" points - which age over something like 4 years. So you can be paying the consequences of filing your small claim for a number of years, not necessarily worth it.
Well I also have high deductibles for similar reasons. And at least for me, over my driving life time I've paid much more for the insurance than I would have paid for replacing a car or two.
(As for liability and stuff, I max that out with high coverage, too many lawsuits here).
Once an older guy ran a red light at a pedestrian crossing and trashed my bike. He wasn't moving fast, no one was hurt, and I'd rather he hit my bike than the baby carraige crossing next to me. I would not have cared, it was an old junky bike, if the guy had showed any remorse, asked me if I was OK, or offered to give me a lift or something. Instead he got belligerent about it. So I called 911, and said he was acting like he was going to leave the scene (true). Within moments (we were just down the street from police headquarters) they had him boxed in with 3 squad cars. Didn't charge him, as the witnesses had left. But at that point I filed the police report and a claim with his insurance company. They gave me the $500 I asked to get a new bike. I am sure that old codger paid thousands in surcharges over the years. Too bad, his bad attitude, karma as they say. (sorry for the OT rambling could not resist)