194
votes
Tenant claims they paid rent in cash and that it was stolen from a mailbox. What should I do?
I'd say your tenant is out $750, not you. How you handle it is totally personal preference.
If you want to be the super-nice landlord and eat the loss this one time, then you might gain some karma ...
- 13.8k
192
votes
Why buy insurance?
Because people are Risk Averse.
Suppose that you own an asset worth $10,000 to you.
Suppose that each year, the asset has 1% chance of being stolen (or completely broken).
The expected value is ...
- 10.2k
176
votes
Accepted
Are small insurances worth it?
In terms of pure expectation of return, taking out insurance is always a losing proposition - by which I mean on average people who take insurance lose money on it. Simplistically the amount you get ...
- 33.1k
135
votes
Accepted
Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what?
The insurance company issued the check. I'd contact the insurance company to have the current check voided and a new one issued to the pharmacy.
- 48.9k
109
votes
Accepted
Is life insurance a financially sound safety net?
as a safety net for emergencies, is purchasing life insurance a practical investment?
Life insurance is not an investment. It is a necessary expense if anyone depends on your income. You should ...
- 130k
107
votes
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?
I think the key to this question is your last sentence, because it's applicable to everyone, high net-worth or not:
How would one determine whether they are better off without insurance?
In ...
- 41.9k
106
votes
Why does Geico ask me not to reveal the limits of my liability coverage in case of a car accident?
Negotiation 101, never be the first to say a number.
You tell them you have a $300,000 limit and magically they want $300,000. Alternatively, they may just assume you carry the minimum.
- 48.9k
98
votes
1 year old car is dead, called the car dealer they can fix it only if I can bring it, what should I do?
The garage probably hasn't understood from your description that the car isn't driveable.
Contact them again and tell them the car is under warranty, it is not driveable, and you want it fixed or ...
- 23.3k
86
votes
Tenant claims they paid rent in cash and that it was stolen from a mailbox. What should I do?
Cash should never have been placed in the mailbox in the first place; this is what checks are for.
I would be a bit surprised if that constitutes your accepting payment, but I Am Not A Lawyer. You ...
- 42.9k
85
votes
Accepted
Did my insurance company scam me when they paid less for my car than I saw it selling for at a used car dealership later?
It does not sound like a scam to me, and actually quite normal.
Assuming you did not overpay for the car, receiving 50% of the purchase price for a 5 year old car is pretty generous. If you actually ...
- 76.1k
81
votes
Why buy insurance?
Discussions around expected values and risk premiums are very useful, but there's another thing to consider: cash flow.
Some individuals have high value assets that are vital to them, such as ...
- 1,553
78
votes
Accepted
Does it make sense to insure something when you could financially bear its loss?
Some brief research suggest that boat insurance is ~1.5% of boat cost/year. So a $10,000 boat might be about $150. Other sites say average boat insurance is $300-500/year. So a bit of a range to work ...
- 69.1k
76
votes
The mortgage company is trying to force us to make repairs after an insurance claim
You submitted a claim for damage to the deck. The insurance company notified the mortgage company.
Now the mortgage company wants to make sure that the collateral for the loan is still in good ...
- 136k
75
votes
Accepted
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?
Yes, and the math that tells you when is called the Kelly Criterion.
The Kelly Criterion is on its face about how much you should bet on a positive-sum game.
Imagine you have a game where you flip a ...
- 3,143
72
votes
Car insurance (UK) excludes commute to and from work, will not pay on claim during non-commute
Having worked in insurance, I can give you a few pointers.
Firstly, state that you "may have to complain". Insurers hate complaints because they really complicate matters, are loads of work and must ...
- 640
66
votes
Tenant claims they paid rent in cash and that it was stolen from a mailbox. What should I do?
This is fairly simple, actually. You should insist on payment for the rent payment you never received and stop accepting cash payments.
If you want to be nice, and believe the story, allow the ...
- 1,521
65
votes
Are small insurances worth it?
An insurance is a gamble with the insurance company where you bet that something bad will happen to you and they bet that everything will be fine. The insurance company decides the odds for that bet, ...
- 23.9k
63
votes
Why does Geico ask me not to reveal the limits of my liability coverage in case of a car accident?
It isn't just GEICO that tells you this, every US car insurance company instructs their customers to not mention the amount of coverage.
Your job is not to negotiate. Your job is to collect the ...
- 136k
59
votes
Accepted
Is it rational to buy insurance if I have the same sum in a savings account?
It will generally be true that the expectation value of insurance is negative (so that the insurer makes a profit). This is true regardless of whether you have X (or any amount) in savings.
If you ...
- 29.4k
57
votes
Is there any reason a person would voluntarily choose to have PMI?
Private mortgage insurance protects the lender if you stop making your mortgage payments. It does not benefit the borrower, aside from the fact that many lenders require it if your down payment isn't ...
- 4,596
56
votes
Accepted
Who pays the premium for bank deposit insurance?
If you are asking who sends the insurance payment to the (presumably) government insurer, the bank does. You'll never see a "deposit insurance" fee.
In economics, however, there is the concept of "...
- 26.5k
53
votes
Accepted
Auto premium increasing with aging vehicle and no new tickets
I assume this happens to everyone in the US, and I believe the reason is simply due to competition. Here are my data points:
I was with Allstate for 17 years, and the rates were pretty consistent for ...
- 47.1k
51
votes
For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?
There are 2 maxims that help make sense of insurance:
never insure anything you can afford to replace
always insure anything you can't afford to lose
Following those 2 rules, "normal" insurance ...
- 2,992
47
votes
Why buy insurance?
As someone who has worked for both an insurance carrier and an insurance agent, the reason people buy insurance is two fold: to spread risk out, and to get the benefits (when applicable) of ...
- 600
46
votes
The mortgage company is trying to force us to make repairs after an insurance claim
Your mortgage agreement probably gives you three options:
Pay off your mortgage in full.
Use the insurance company's deck-repair payment to fix your deck to be similar in quality to what it was when ...
- 3,471
45
votes
Do I need life insurance if I can cover my own funeral costs?
Life insurance should be used to replace your income for someone that depends on it. Since that is not the case, and you have enough in your estate to cover funeral costs, it sounds like you do not ...
- 130k
45
votes
What is the point of term life insurance?
I think the part you are missing is that the insurance isn't there to replace your husband, it is to replace his income.
The implicit assumption is that when your husband is 80 he is no longer earning ...
- 53k
45
votes
Can a roofing company charge me more money for the cost of the roof 2.5 years after they were paid and job completed?
This could be a scam. This could be unrelated to the original project. It could be a continuation of the original series of events. Or at least that is what they want you to think. There is also a ...
- 136k
44
votes
Does it make sense to insure something when you could financially bear its loss?
Insurance is a financial product to control risk. The fact that a loss would not be catastrophic simply makes the decision to carry insurance less critical. It is perfectly reasonable to be "self-...
- 3,990
44
votes
Accepted
1 year old car is dead, called the car dealer they can fix it only if I can bring it, what should I do?
Under EU law:
within the legal guarantee period of two years, defective products must be repaired or replaced without any cost to the consumer. This includes shipping costs.
This means that you ...
- 1,162
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible