Re: Board Locks vs. Insurance

From: Luigi Semenzato (luigi@Nersc.GOV-DeleteThis)
Date: Wed May 07 1997 - 11:10:45 PDT


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To: wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis
Subject: Re: Board Locks vs. Insurance
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 07 May 1997 10:37:03 PDT." <3370B8A2.E63260F5@sfgate.com-DeleteThis> 
Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 11:10:45 -0700
From: Luigi Semenzato <luigi@Nersc.GOV-DeleteThis>

Dave Hoagland writes:

> Insurance is the ultimate defense against thievery. Of the three
> people I know with Toyota vans, every one had their vans
> stolen. Every one got the van back minus the gear. Only one had a
> good renters policy that covered her gear at replacement cost. She
> is now happily sailing on better gear than before with extra money
> in the bank. That's a better deal than she would have gotten by
> unloading everything at the swap meet. The same thing has happened
> to me in the past. I don't know why anybody would expose $3000 to
> $10000 worth of gear to the risk of theft. If you leave stuff on or
> in a car eventually it will be stolen. A few hundred dollars up
> front will save you a lot of grief. That's less than the price of a
> good boom for a years coverage. Get insurance and then never worry
> about leaving your gear out of sight again. Well, you might miss a
> good day or two...

Is this is truly the situation, then the insurance companies are
mispricing the cost of insuring windsurfing gear, and yes, we should
take advantage of it, and hope it won't take too long for them to
catch on.

I can see only two reasons for buying insurance.

1. You know you are at higher risk than the insurance company thinks.
Then, if the risk is high enough (say, riskier than the chance of a
meteorite falling on your head), it's a good deal for you.

2. You cannot self-insure, because your cash flow is tight and there's
no room for sudden losses.

Personally I've always bought as little insurance as I could and tried
to save money instead. ---Luigi



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