"To make matters worse, the owner's insurance policy didn't cover comprehensive claims from road debris..."
So when you combine these two issues, you end up with an unwritten, mob-boss-esque command of something like "Buy the most expensive insurance for all of your expensive widgets so that you can (maybe) be covered in the event that something minor happens"
Seems anti-consumer all the way down.
Leases still near universally require collision coverage though, because they want damage fixed.
And either no one told him that it has to be a collision claim, or he just decided not to bother with a $700 collision claim after he got an independent estimate (and complain to the author that debris ought to be covered by comprehensive instead of being treated the same as you hitting a wall.)
Pedantically[0], he doesn't want a $16,000 no-fault claim misclassified as at-fault on his record. See:
> > obviously damage from road debris falls under my no-fault comprehensive
0: The record entry would be the same (eg "road debris, at-fault") either way.
If you hit an object in the road, that is normally (in the US) classified as a collision incident.
The only time that comprehensive would cover a claim like this (in the US) is if the object was a projectile, or an animal.
I’m guessing they are thinking about the common scenario where a truck kicks up a rock and it hits your windshield… and they are falsely assuming this is normally a comprehensive claim because it is “road debris”, when the real reason it is covered that way is because it is a projectile.
(I guess similar arguments could be made about other insurance markets)
I don’t own a Tesla but insurance for their cars is already relatively more expensive in several states. This can be readily seen in annual or semi-annual policies. Monthly payment policies that cost more per annum are a concern to me, but don’t factor into underwriting analysis at the make/model level.
The problem lies in that both parties have misaligned and often oposite objectives: The Insurer's main goal is to maximize their profit, and the levers it has is to avoid paying the insured as much as possible. That's why we have so many denied payments and abuse in the case of health insurance.
Moreover, given that every insurance claim is a single case for the Insurer, they have the upper hand and oftentimes there is no recourse for the insured to really fight an unjust insurance denial.
We must find an alternative for this terrible system...
If I ever manage to get powerful and\or wealthy, I will task myself with fighting the scourge that is the insurance cabals tooth and nail.
So don't look to the wealthy to fix this one. They don't have this problem.
[*] except health insurance [**] and vehicular liability insurance where required by law in places that do not allow posting a cash bond instead (almost every state in the US does).
[**] unless you're wealthy enough to make large donations to hospitals, which is much better than having health insurance.
The ACA, in the US, prohibited lifetime and annual maximums except those that apply only to services not defined as essential health benefits, with the exception of pre-existing grandfathered-in individual (not group) plans.
Michigan, in a big populist maneuver, got rid of requirements for unlimited personal injury protection (with lifetime medical payments). Drivers are happy, as the risk they take when they hit the road has been transferred to Medicaid. It's not quite the libertarian victory the Republicans that back it are claiming, shifting from a required user fee to a public payor of last resort.
(It's more consistent for Democrats, moving a cost that disproportionately impacts lower income people to a public funding model)
On the other hand, more usual insurances are actuarial and work on the basis that an insurer shares the risk across the people/property that is insured and charges appropriately.
Most insurance of that nature make their profits from investing the income, relying on their actuaries to calculate the expected losses due to claims.