It's apparently (based on an anecdote of 1 - further research appreciated) very straightforward to get meteorite coverage on your insurance - just ask for it and you'll get it added at no extra cost. I have no idea why it is that this one rare event is so straightforward, but I have a friend who gets it added to every policy he purchases and he's never had any resistance.
I can see why it might be free for a conventional policy, but surely it can't be free for an arbitrarily large policy? An interesting case of rounding working out in your favor if true.
I do think large properties - stadiums, skyscrapers, etc - fall into their own weird category when it comes to insurance.
I mean, what happened with the twin towers and the other affected buildings, not to mention the tens of thousands of people that died or were injured as a consequence, in terms of insurance?
IIRC, this turned into a large and complicated reinsurance claim case because they couldn't work out if the second plane hitting counted as a separate event, or if both planes should be counted as the same attack. This made a big difference in terms of who should pay whom, and what amount.
> [Michelle] Knapp had just purchased the car for $300. Immediately following the extraterrestrial impact, the vehicle was sold to Iris Lang, wife of renowned meteorite collector and dealer Al Lang, for $25,000.
Sometimes I wonder why we pay for insurance (to cover unpredictable accidents) when insurance policies specifically don't cover many unpredictable accidents...
You don't insurance to protect the car, you get insurance to protect yourself, i.e., liability.
If you do an oopsy, and someone dies or even ends up in a wheelchair, how are you going to pay for the resulting lawsuit otherwise? Covering repairs is just an added bonus on top of the CYA.
Also consider if you end up in a wheelchair or quadriplegic: what happens if the person who hit you is a deadbeat driving around without insurance? Do you think you'll be able to extract anything out of them with a standard lawsuit?
Do you have general life insurance with critical illness coverage? Do you have any kind of income replacement policy?
In many jurisdictions (e.g. the USA) coverage against theft and damage is separate and can be omitted. Liability insurance is usually mandatory by law. So I think people tend to view them as separate and different to some extent.
Exactly. It's unlikely to happen to you personally, but it's certain to happen to some proportion of the whole population in a given time period. That's what makes meteorites different - they're unlikely to happen even to the population as a whole.
There has been (one, perhaps two?) cases of damage to car by meteorite in the last decade, in the same period there have been billions of insurance policies issued. The per insurance policy cost is negligible.
Not necessarily. My home insurance (with outdoor coverage) has an add-on policy that also covers damage away from the house up to €3000 per event, for €12 a month with a €100 deductible.
That means I don’t need any separate insurance for my laptop, phone, headphones, watch, what have you. And if just one of those breaks in the span of 3 years, I’ve already broken even at worst, or a net €2570 ‘gain’ at best.
I need to rewatch the film The Man Who Sued God, which tackles this particular thing (I believe it was based on a real story?). The tl;dr is, a guy's boat was hit by lightning and the insurance didn't pay out because it was "Act of God", or in more agnostic terms, unpredictable / unexpected.
Interesting, I saw a Bollywood film with that premise - can't recall the name but I think more recent - not a boat, but the guy's shop. Was good from what I recall, would also recommend.
(edit: though in hindsight I realise that's a useless 'recommendation' if I can't recall the name...)
