Hello everyone, I've been a fan of ozB community and thankful for all the support I've got and further would like to get suggestions from you all.
So, I'm a part time working international student and recently upgraded my car. My old car was a cheap one and didn't bother getting any insurance on it other than the CTP. Now, after Saving up for long, I managed to get a decent condition car for around 7k. However, I spent a huge chunk of my savings to get this car keeping in mind all other costs and risks.
I have been around for a few reading forums and posts of this community but didn't get my questions answered so thought it would be a better idea to ask this directly and here I am.
Need suggestions and opinions on whether I should get a third-party comprehensive insurance or just be uninsured ? What other costs are involved ?
Also need suggestions on the cheapest and best one if there is any?
Should I Buy a Third Party Car Insurance ?
Comments
Its not 3rd party comprehensive.
Its Third party Property or Third Party Fire & Theft, OR Comprehensive.
See currentfads post below for link to descriptions.
And given as international flights out, are difficult, runners are out. Its imperitive they get at least the 3rdPP insurance.
You are correct.
At the moment NRMA is having $10 per month Third party property and fire and theft if you would like to consider. I don't suggest you to drive uninsured. if you had struggled to buy $7k car, how would you cope if you damage other party's car or property. I would buy comprehensive insurance for a $7k car.
That deal is already over. I missed the boat though.
It doesn't matter how much is your car, get third party property insurance as minimum if you want your car on the road.
Yet another poster who does not understand the different forms of insurance. Dude has been driving around with only CTP completely unaware of the risk he has been running.
OP, say you run up the back of a new Porsche and write off both cars. Your CTP will pay the medical bills for the Porsche driver (though not for you) but you will then be bankrupted by the cost of a new Porsche - CTP only covers injury and disability, not property. To cover that you need TPP - third part <i>property</i> insurance. If you want to cover your own car as well so you can buy a replacement you'll need CI - comprehensive insurance.
TPP is fairly cheap. Really, if you can't afford TPP then you can't afford to drive at all.
I thought Third Party only covered property of a third party (i.e. not anyone involved in the collision).
@Plug: Two different insurances - you should get both:
CTP (Compulsory Third Party) covers injury to third parties but not property damage
TPP (Third Party Property) covers property damage to third parties
@Plug: It is referred to as a 'third-party' cover since the beneficiary of the policy is someone other than the two parties involved in the contract (the car owner and the insurance company).
I doubt he can be made to pay out any significant amount given he is an international student with limited income. If he does not mind leaving Australia and never come back after completing his studies then probably going with just CTP makes sense to him.
The real lesson here is that for the rest of us to get comprehensive to avoid the huge headaches after running into him, especially if you are not driving a Porsche.
This is terrible advice.
@BreezyPalms: So you'd rather skimp on comprehensive insurance and try to chase after him for damages? What are you going to do if he simply leave the country?
@truetypezk: I have comprehensive insurance
Iâm just saying your comment (copied below) is incorrect on many fronts. Not having insurance and having to flea Australia to avoid legal proceedings is terrible adviceâI doubt he can be made to pay out any significant amount given he is an international student with limited income. If he does not mind leaving Australia and never come back after completing his studies then probably going with just CTP makes sense to him.â
@BreezyPalms: Why is it a terrible advice? What can you do to get him back/prevent him from leaving? If you can't hold him liable then it is a good advice to him. The important thing here is for you to realise such people exist because this behaviour makes sense financially, so you need to be prepared with comprehensive insurance.
The important thing here is for you to realise such people exist because this behaviour makes sense financially,
Or also because people like you are giving ideas to rip off your fellow neighbours??
You might feel smart for saying it out loud, but….@truetypezk: It doesnât make sense financially.
1. A plane ticket home will cost more than insurance.
2. Would lose any assets in Aus or need to sell them quickly - ie at a loss
3. End up with an unfinished degree, more costs.Itâs a cheats way out, not financially sensible.
@Euphemistic: And never mind this one;
- Pinged on re-entry to Aus at any point later.
Plus, debts are going international these days, especially with all the trade deals
Obvious mistake was obvious. You can't register the car without CTP.
The mistake was mislabeling 3rd party property as third-party comprehensive insurance. Wasn't referring to CTP.
Third party property is probably the only legitimately good value insurance on the market. Get it. Always get it.
if you hit someones Porsche by accident how are you going to pay for repairs? get third party insurance as a minimum
Stay away from Porscheâs? Lol
What about Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Ferraris, Bugattis and McLaren's?
McLaren's what?
To be honest, people donât realise, but the cars to really be concerned about are not the obvious luxury cars.
Itâs the modified vehicles, like ambos and cop cars, that costs you, because they not standard means $$ and theyâre common on the roads.
Ok, and let's think of it this way… You go down the road and miss seeing the car in front of you stop and you plough your $7,000 car up the rear of their $50,000 SUV, that then hits the $45,000 sedan on front of that, then that car spears out into the intersection and hits a passing $8,000 motorcycle… All of them are deemed write offs…
Now, do you have $200 for insurance, or do you have $100,000+ to replace all these vehicles?
In the above example, would you only be liable to the damage of the $50,000 SUV and no other?
Ive been in an accident like this before ie waiting at a set of lights, car runs up the back of me, i hit the car in front, the car in front hits the one in front of it (4 cars with damage).
My insurance had to cover the guy in front of me. It was deemed i should have left a safe and reasonable distance between myself and the car in front of me :( Though i didnt have to pay the excess. The guy who hit me covered my excess.
Okay, maybe its not the same haha but just thought id share my story :)
It goes back up the line. The bike would claim from the sedan. The sedan's insurance would say, "not us" and would pile both claims onto the SUV. The SUV insurance would say "Not our fault" and pass all three claims up to OP…
At the end of it, OP would end up paying for all of it as they were the cause of the initial accident and all the collateral and each insurance company would just be chasing the next vehicle up the accident chain.
And what is a "safe and reasonable distance" when parked in traffic? If I hit your stationary car at 40km/h, it would punt your car 10 to 20 metres down the road, so I don't understand how that worked. I would have disputed that, as there is no way anyone could possibly leave enough room for every possible scenario. There is no legislation about the distance you must keep while stopped at an intersection.
Either way, you still think OP has enough to cover the $50,000 SUV?
what is a "safe and reasonable distance" when parked in traffic?
That was my thoughts but since there was no out of pocket cost to me I wasn't overly fussed.
I do recall when I did my P's driving test they said something about the distance allowed, being able to see the bottom of the wheels of the car in front of me. There are way too many variables in this. Height of driver etc etc so doubts its legislated.
Agree, i doubt anyone ahs 50k sitting around to pay these expenses and thrid party insurance is a must
@sund00bie: That tip from the driving instructor was just a tip it's not a rule.
You can get as close as you want to a stopped car without hitting it; even thought it is not a smart thing to do.@Nereosis: But if the car in front is an incompetent driver and rolls back when they go to leave you get deemed at fault for being to close.
@DarwinBoy: Hence why it's not smart. You should keep a metre or two gap but legally you can be 1cm behind them when completely stopped.
I have gone through this in 2015, involved 4 cars in set up lights as i accidentally hit accelerator instead of brake.
That would have been a lot of angry drivers haha
Easy, if he/she is that poor - just declare bankruptcy.
or start some gofundme
Good luck with getting anything financial for the next 5-10 years after
Where does the cyclist fit in all this?
Same goes for cyclists.
Don't be like [Royce](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-07/royce-kurmelovs-car-câŚ).
Royce drives. Royce even has enough money to buy insurance. Royce did not buy insurance. Royce blames everyone else.
Royce is a journalist. Royce thinks only accountants can manage finances. Royce thinks that it's all a trap. Royce writes about the debt trap.
All Royce had to do was not be an idiot and buy insurance, instead, Royce writes a book to justify his stupidity.
Royce is not smart. Royce deserves to be embarrassed. Don't be like Royce.
Buy insurance.
Wow you just rolled Royce
I have been looking for a thread/reply on here from a while ago where there was a peanut claiming to be "self insured" and that "insurance was a waste" and how they saved "at least $200 a year" not paying insurance premiums and how they invest that money instead and get a better return than spending it on insurance.
It was debunked in about 3 mins. and how even a minor fender scrape could wipe out 11 years of not paying insurance.
The worst thing about these filthy degenerates is trying to get compensation from them.
Can't get TPP, can't afford to drive.
Don't want to get TPP, intellectually below the safety threshold to drive.
+1 for the phrase "filthy degenerates"!
And if they have an accident that is their fault, they ask you to claim on your insurance or they will pay you $1 a week for the next 20 years….
@shakman: And that's exactly what you do.
Then they can pay your insurance company $1 a week for the next 20 years…
Hey pegaxs,
Always loved your work, but Iâve never seen a $200 3rd party. In fact the last I checked the cheapest I found was over $400, close to $500.
Can you hit me up with the cheapest 3rd party provider?
RACQ's third party property is something like $190 a year for me.
I wish I could, dude. I am an old man, living in a low risk area, driving a low risk vehicle doing low km per year. To give you an idea, my comprehensive is about $400 for my lowest vehicle (Fiat 500) and about $600 for my most expensive vehicle (Mitsubishi Outlander).
Insurance is one of those things you have to try and figure out where you fall in. I personally use Budget, but that may not work for other people. Age, location, (trigger warning) gender, no claim discount and type of vehicle can all have an impact on what you pay.
I use one of the shop around quote sites that does multiple places at once, and then when I find some cheap providers, I go directly to their website and re-quote it there (to avoid the "finders fee").
@pegaxs: Hey Pagaxs, you're "doing low km per year"?
Then try Woolworths insurance.
They give discounts for low km.
I drive less than 1,000km per year and my car is insured for $5000 with a comprehensive insurance premium of $270!
Can you beat that?
@Gekov: Wow, less than 1,000km per year. Would nearly be cheaper to sell the car and take an Uber or taxi for that many km per year…
@pegaxs: " Would nearly be cheaper to sell the car and take an Uber or taxi"
Maybe cheaper, BUT, BUT, BUT, …
NAH, I prefer the customized comfort (e.g. sheepskin seat covers) of my own car, and I hate waiting for a taxi.
Money ain't everything!
The car waits for me rather than the other way round.
@Gekov: Just did a quote with Woolworths insurance. Came out to be $2,856.01 p.a. for a 14 year old car, $1500 excess. No at fault accidents in past 5 years. Even at this rate they decline coverage to under 25s. With a $500 excess this goes up to $4,319.27 đ¤đ¤đ¤
~$1100 is what it would cost me with Allianz to renew with the same coverage.
Nrma recently had $120 third part fire and theft. My full comp is $500.
For me (26yo) aami and Suncorp consistently have had the cheapest third party property Insurance. Ive payed $143 (1998 ford courier) $230 (2004 lancer)
When I was driving a shitbox old Falcon Bingle (which is a Suncorp brand) was the best value on the market. Worth looking into.
I remember that thread too….
Insurance is a way to offset large expenses by making lots of small payments in advance. Insurance companies wouldn't be offering insurance to you unless you were giving them more money than they were going to pay out. Insurance margins are pretty slim, so they generally charge about what they think they will pay out - but make money by investing their pool of money until they have to pay out. If you have enough capital then self insuring can make sense - but it requires you to have the means to cover worst case scenarios.
There's a reason that large fleet operators normally self insure.
While I can agree that under some circumstances, self insurance is an option (large fleets sharing risk over many multiple of vehicles), the average person should not even consider self insuring.
Insurance is more a case of covering for "what if" rather than "when" and people lose sight of the difference. In my life, I have always had insurance on everything I own, car, bikes, house, etc, and while it cost me a few hundred a year, after near 30 years of paying insurance, I don't think I would have ever broken even if I wrote off 2 or 3 cars in that time and just put the insurance money into investments instead…
@pegaxs: I used to 'self insure' my motorcycles because it's unlikely that you'll damage more than one or two panels in a crash between a motorcycle and a car. When I was a less experienced and younger rider the premiums were quite high - so I felt it was worth it. Now that I'm older and ride a bike which somehow fits into a low risk class I definitely have insurance (actually have comprehensive because it's so cheap for my model for some reason). I had one accident in that time - which I admitted to and paid for without hassle. That accident cost me about $1100 - which was much less than the combined cost of TPP insurance for the years I didn't have it. Luck could have gone the other way for me - but it didn't.
@pegaxs: Agreed.
As someone who works in Commercial Insurance, I literally cringe anytime anyone with a middle class income says "I dOn'T NeEd InSurAnCe!"
Never mind it's my job, you insure yourself for the likelihood someone else hits your car, or you have the misfortune of hitting a car far more outside your pay scale to replace.
At the very least, Third Party if you want to use your car beyond your own house, for the love of my sanity.
Even large fleets often only self insure for up to a certain amount. Eg worked for a multinational company that self insured up to about $50k. Anything under that came out of their pocket, but it saved a bucket load of premium. The bean counters must have worked out the break even point.
Itâs just like upping your excess to save premiums. My excess is high because I can save in premiums, repair cheap damage (if I want) and have an excellent claims history. I âself insureâ up to $1500.
@Euphemistic: Pretty much what I'd recommend for everyone who can afford to do that. And I see a lot of fleet motor clients who do that.
I personally have a $900xs on my car and it works out for me.
A summary of Royce's predicament, "reeeeee, it's everyone's fault but mine".
It's like hitting a tree and writing a book about the dangers of wild plant life.
Doesn't sound like Royce is blaming everyone else, he makes no excuses about why he had no insurance which he admits is embarrassing however he accepted the situation he got himself into and seems to be focused on what he can do now regarding his debt and how he can help others who have also found themselves in debt.
Also from the description of his book it seems like he is exploring the perils of personal debt which so many Australians find themselves in because like himself previously, they don't take their financials seriously.
Then I am not sure why he has to bring up his collision, which put himself into debt or being uninsured which again, puts himself into debt.
It's embarrassing for sure but I think it's necessary for him to bring up to explain why he has written a book regarding debt and how it has affected him personally. He could have put his head in the sand like most in debt do but I think it's courageous of him to face up to his mistakes publicly.
it's necessary for him to bring up to explain why he has written a book regarding debt
If he genuinely was not looking elsewhere to blame, this is how the entire section about his "personal tragedy" would have sounded like.
"I'm in debt because I was stupid. I was driving uninsured."
Boom. Message received.
Here is what the book would read like.
"Don't want to be in debt, first rule, don't take risks you can't afford. Like driving uninsured."
The rest of the book will then read like, "don't spend money you don't have."
It's not so much a book. More a greeting card.
@[Deactivated]: You've missed the point of the book entirely then.
Not everyone has the mental faculties of the glorious tshow who studied all aspects of human knowledge in the exact optimal sequence and implemented all stratagems flawlessly and takes Personal Responsibility for every chance occurrence in life.
Reecey boy got into trouble with debt (due to a silly choice, I agree), then thought "hey I'm a writer, I could write about this". So he took the Personal Responsibility to look into the whole concept of getting in trouble with debt and writing a book with the goal of receiving money.
People rack up massive debts for many other reasons (failed investments, scams, love… but I repeat myself), and it's overly simplistic to say "personal reeeeee-sponsibility" when there are armies of much smarter people trying to trick Average Joe into taking on debt.
While a single dot point "don't debt dumbly" might work for you, other people (gasp! filthy imperfectates) have different thought processes and will engage better with a personal story.
(BTW I happened to catch a TV interview with him a few weeks ago and he straight up admitted he done (profanity) up by driving uninsured and accepted it was his mess to solve)
BTW I happened to catch a TV interview with him a few weeks ago and he straight up admitted he done (profanity) up by driving uninsured and accepted it was his mess to solve
I'm glad to hear that.
tshow who studied all aspects of human knowledge in the exact optimal sequence and implemented all stratagems flawlessly
I try my best. Thanks for the recognition. :)
Hi Royce, nice to see you on ozbargain.
:P
Apparently Royce has a law degree but finds it too hard to remember to get insurance? What a flog lol.
I have seen similarly money rich, time/memory poor clients who would rather pay me to figure that out :P
I would like to hear his parents view on Royce not having insurance.
The government really just needs to make TPP compulsory like CTP. Thereâs only really 3 types of people who donât get at least TPP:
1) people who donât understand what it is.
2) people who canât afford TPP. They actually just canât afford to own and operate a car
3) people who think they self insure. If in fact they do have the money to cover themselves I wouldnât care, but itâs doubtful that they do.Making it compulsory fixes all of these
They should but not with the current model. Unfortunately, there isn't any political will or advantage to stir the pot at this moment.
There aren't sufficient insurance underwriters. Making it compulsory would give insurers them unfettered opportunity to price jack.
You forgot:
4) people who believe they are really good (or careful) drivers and will never have an accident.
5) people who donât give a shit about damaging othersâ property and ainât paying when they do - theyâll either do a runner, cry poor or sneer, âSue me.â
He was also grateful for his law degree.
lol
I think you might be confused about 3rd party insurance given your comments about having a decent car now. CTP insurance covers you for injury to other people, but not property. 3rd party insurance covers the damages you cause to other people's property (including their car). This does not cover damage caused to your car. For this you need comprehensive.
OP please read the 4 different types of car insurance and what each one covers.
https://understandinsurance.com.au/types-of-insurance/car-inâŚ
For this post, your profile pic deserves up-voting.
YES,If you have an old car you need third-party insurance.
New car you must have Full comprehensive insurance.
If you can not afford car insurance ( then ride a BIKE).
You can not afford the RISK when you have an accidents.New car you must have Full comprehensive insurance.
Not strictly true, but certainly very wise. The more your car costs the more you should get comprehensive. If you cannot afford to replace the vehicle out of pocket, you cannot afford not to have comprehensive insurance.
Ie for me a $1400 was TPP no brainer. At $8k Had TPP and relied on my good driving record of no crashes. At $17k comprehensive was a no brainer.
If you can not afford car insurance ( then ride a BIKE)
With bike insurance (this is going to become an interesting topic when a sufficient volume of people on bikes cause accidents that end up costing big money to fix).
If you cannot afford bike insurance then WALK
Feels like they meant bike as in âbicycleâ. If youâre doing a significant amount of damage to a third partyâs property (i.e. another car) from your bicycle youâre probably gonna have some more pressing medical issues to worry about than financial worries…
I am talking about a bicycle.
Yes, the medical issues will probably be significant, but take out a panel or two from a $200k+ vehicle and you'll be nursing a headache that Nurofen won't fix.
Also, don't forget damages claims that can come from pedestrians. I've seen it happen, and it ain't pretty. The value of these can put your car repair bill to shame.
Third party liability for bicycle riders is actually pretty cheap. Mine is like $60 a year I think. You can probably find it cheaper.
then ride a BIKE
What if you run over someone by accident and kill them? I think you need insurance for riding a bike too.
Don't be stingy
Okay. So i have decided to get an insurance ASAP. Thank you for your suggestions. Now comes down to which insurance and what type of insurance I should get that wouldn't hurt my pocket ?
There is practically only two "optional" insurance. The non-optional one is paid with your rego (may vary by state).
Comprehensive insurance covers both your vehicle and other party's even when no other party is involved, ie stolen or wrapped around a sneaky tree. They also cover representation should you need a lawyer as a result of your collision.
Third party property covers other party only. You won't get paid for damage to your property. Some insurances do include a little of your own property but it's not really worth mentioning. They don't cover you for representation. If someone hits you and they are at fault, you're on your own.
And most important advice you will receive in this post… Whoever tells you that going uninsured is an option, never take their advice for anything.
If money is an issue, take out 3rd Party Property insurance. It may not cover your carâs damage, but at least your covered for other peopleâs damage. This doesnât just extend to vehicles, you could smash into someoneâs house etc.
In fact, they should really make 3rd party property insurance compulsory IMO.
YES. If you can't afford third-party comprehensive insurance, you can't afford to have a car.