Insurance bills you every month for a disaster that may never come. On a fixed income with premiums climbing, dropping a policy can look like found money.
Paying for insurance may seem like money poorly spent. In fact, you are not wasting money. You are protecting yourself against the financial consequences of disaster. If any of these excuses have crossed your mind as reasons not to purchase insurance, think again.
Car, home
1. Your home is paid off
So what? Paying off the mortgage retires the bank’s interest in your house, not the risk to it. The lender required coverage to protect its loan, so with the loan gone, the insurance requirement goes too.
But a disaster serious enough to require a rebuild now threatens your largest asset, with no lender sharing the exposure and no payout to recover. You did not remove the risk when you paid off the mortgage. You moved it all onto yourself.
2. You are a careful driver
We all think we are excellent drivers. But a clean record earns a lower premium, not a safer commute. It doesn’t protect you from the driver who runs a red light while looking at a phone, and that’s why liability and uninsured-motorist coverage exist.
One in seven drivers carried no insurance at all in 2023, and one in three was uninsured or underinsured. If you don’t need insurance for your driving, you need it for theirs.
3. You own nothing of value
You may rent and think renters insurance is just another expense you don’t need. It’s true; the value of your furniture and your electronics may be peanuts. But renters insurance was never mostly about the furniture.
Leave a candle burning or a stovetop unattended, and a fire that spreads to other units can leave you legally responsible for the damage. The liability coverage in a renters policy pays for that and your legal defense, up to its limit. It also pays your hotel bill when your own unit becomes uninhabitable.
The landlord’s policy covers the building, not your belongings or the claim that comes back to you after the landlord’s insurer rebuilds.
4. You are comfortable being a criminal
Seriously? New Hampshire is the only state that does not require drivers to carry insurance. Everywhere else, driving without at least liability coverage is illegal, and getting caught can mean fines or a suspended license.
Remember that state minimum coverage only pays for the damage you cause to other people, not your own car. For that reason, most drivers carry well above the minimum, since one bad injury claim can exhaust a low limit and leave the rest on them.
5. You live in a low-risk area
Low risk does not mean no risk. It usually means far from the coast, clear of wildfire country, and located in a safe, low-crime ZIP code. That’s irrelevant if the worst actually happens.
Wind and hail account for roughly 42% of homeowner losses and water damage and freezing for nearly 25%; about one in 18 insured homes files a claim in a given year. Aside from weather and geography, a dishwasher hose or a pipe behind a wall does not check the neighborhood before it bursts.
6. Your car is old and paid off
Valid point. Once a car is worth only a few thousand dollars, collision and comprehensive can cost more over the years than any check you would collect, and dropping them can be a defensible call. Just be clear about what you are dropping. Those coverages protect your own car.
Liability, the coverage the law requires, is a separate line, and it is the one standing between you and a judgment after you injure someone. Reviewing an older car’s coverage is smart. Confusing the two is not.
7. You have never made a claim
There’s a first time for everything. Decades of premiums, no claims, nothing to show for it. That math treats insurance like a subscription that failed to deliver.
But you were not buying payouts. You are simply giving yourself peace of mind. The maddening thing about insurance is that the best possible outcome is paying for it and never needing it. This is significantly better than needing it and not having it.
8. You would rather self-insure
Self-insuring is a real strategy: Set aside what you would have paid in premiums, invest it, and cover your losses from the pot. It works until the loss outruns the pot. A few thousand dollars covers a fender bender or a broken window. It does not cover a house fire or a liability claim that exceeds your net worth.
Before canceling a policy to save, shop it instead. Rates drift and loyalty isn’t always rewarded, so comparing carriers at renewal can cut the premium without cutting the protection.
Stop overpaying for basic insurance
Insurance pays for the extraordinary expenses you cannot pay out of pocket. That’s what makes it worth having, especially if you take 10 minutes now to shave hundreds of dollars off your car
Join over 10 million people who have taken back control and stopped overpaying.
No excuses. It costs you absolutely nothing to check.
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