"Tim Harford says we shouldn’t buy rental car insurance!" That was not The Economist in the Family, that was Natasha (!).
by Tyler Cowen on May 19, 2006 at 9:07 am in Travels | Permalink
"Tim Harford says we shouldn’t buy rental car insurance!" That was not The Economist in the Family, that was Natasha (!).
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Well, I can tell Tim one reason this stuff gets sold — very high pressure sales tactics. I avoid best buy largely for this reason.
The last time I had to activate a new debit card over the phone, I was forced to listen to two very pushy protection plan offers, and to decline each one twice, WITHOUT the number to push to decline being mentioned, before the bank would declare that the card was activated. It left me wondering how many people accidentally sign up for the insurance, just because they can’t figure out the phone menu.
… or, having now read the intriguing Rabin and Thaler paper pointed to by Mr. Harford (http://risk.behaviouralfinance.net/RaTh01.pdf), I guess that should be “given that expected utility is an ex-hypothesis, why is it still front and centre in the courses that shape Economists’ worldviews (econ 101)”?
I guess I’m missing something here, but I’m not sure what.
I think the argument against it underestimates how liquidity-constrained a lot of people are. A lot of people out there wouldn’t be able to come up with a $900 deductible on short notice. Also, a lot of times the extra insurance contains a convienience factor. Best Buy, for example, includes that they will provide a replacement product quickly, whereas the manufactuer insurance typically involves shipping the broken product back to them.
Following up on MattXIV, I’ve cashed in on my cellphone “protection plan” for things which no actual warranty would cover. I probably made money on the deal.
MattXIV’s point about people’s liquidity constraints is also quite good. I’m recently (in the past 2 years) in a position where a $500 to $1000 unexpected payment for something breaking is now something I can afford, but for the previous 19 years of my adult life, if I couldn’t get someone else to pick up the bill, it would go on a credit card at 18% or higher interest.
I’ve always declined rental car supplementary insurance, though, as it was a risk I’ve been willing to take. The rental car companies will state that my insurance won’t cover the loss of use of the car to the rental company, but I figured that in that event, I’d be willing to subpeona their records to prove that the car wouldn’t have been rented, and/or that they’ve delayed the repair in bad faith to run up my bill, or at least make them spend on lawyers more than the damage to the car.
DK:
Not to pry, but was it Chase? They bought my old bank and I had an identical experience with my new card. I’d never seen anyone quite that pushy before.
Another issue is that rental car insurance saves us a lot of headaches. The actual cost savings is not just the $900 deductible, but also the aggravation of having to deal with the rental company in another country with other customs, possible police/judicial involvement, and lots of paperwork. The seduction of the insurance is that it makes the hassle go away, and the value of that depends on the person. If I were to rent a car in a foreign country whose language were only known to me through a phrase-book, I’d be very tempted by that policy.
Yes indeed, driving wildly in someone else’s car in a foreign country is well worth $10.
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