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Comment by 1123581321 | Hacker News Reader

He didn’t have comprehensive at all. Comprehensive is cheap with a deductible of a few hundred. People don’t forgo it unless they’re driving a junker. Reading the comments on the article, it sounds like the lack of comprehensive might have been a mistake during transferring policies between cars. If so, that’s a brutal consequence of an easy misclick or misstatement without a double check.

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The first half is strictly true though - comprehensive doesn’t cover road debris; you have to file under collision and unlike comprehensive the premiums are more expensive and claims are solely your fault for the damage, increasing them further.

Leases still near universally require collision coverage though, because they want damage fixed.

That makes this even more surprising if so, because a policy on that car without collision should’ve raised a gigantic red flag with his carrier.

My suspicion is that he did have collision and comprehensive, thought “obviously damage from road debris falls under my no-fault comprehensive,” then found out that it doesn’t unless it never actually touched the road.

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.)

This is exactly it. The guy doesn't want a $16,000 at-fault claim on his record.

> The guy doesn't want a $16,000 at-fault claim on his record.

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.

Not sure where that quote is from, but whoever said it is confused.

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.

Whether or not he was insured against this particular damage doesn't make the cost of the repair less outrageous. In the end, drivers will be paying for these repairs, whether directly or through "cheap" monthly insurance payments that hide these occasional events.

(I guess similar arguments could be made about other insurance markets)

Yes, as you noted, you’re basically describing the general principle of insurance. :)

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.

I was under the impression that the cost in insuring Teslas was down to the slow repair times, since insurance companies were often on the hook for rental cars while parts are on back order.

How do you lease a car without comprehensive insurance?

if you finance a car, is comprehensive required?

Usually full coverage is required for buying a car with a loan. Under the idea that the bank wants their asset protected. Lease rules may be different and may be more exploitative.

Yep.

usually, yes.

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