Uh actually no.

Do you hope your house burns down so your insurance is a 'good deal'?

Do you hope to have quad bypass surgery so your health insurance would be a good investment?

The ONLY reason you SHOULD buy insurance is to protect against catastrophic expenses that you might be unable to bear.... so a new engine or tranny, a new AC system, etc.

Not tires. Not brakes. Not oil changes.

This is a tale of rich man/poor man IMO. People that are terrified of expenses paradoxically wind up spending more. As a class, overall, etc. There are always examples one way or the other, but the one absolute truth is BMW makes money in the end.



A

ard I agree the biggest reason is for catastrophic. But how many people get cell phone insurance--a lot. They probably could afford to just pay for a new one but they like the convenience of paying $3 a month or whatever it is, not have to worry if they drop it and they can get just go get a new one. Like I said, I have had 3 tires claims on my warranty that I have had only 5 months--to me it was worth it. It's consumer choice at some level whether it benefits them. I think it's best served to ask those who have had it whether it was worth it then state it's not and never gone through the process of actually owning it.

I have 24k on the X5 and have not had a leak, tire blow out, broken rim, scratch, etc, etc, yet. Probably will get 30-35k on the tires.

Do I need to have bought the tire policy to 'qualify' as to being able to comment on the cost effectiveness of the policy?

here my 0.02 cents

i got autonight ins from dealer for $1500 and as we type my car is in the dealer getting the 2nd front tire replaced @ $650 p tire in 2 mo's i had another nail

btw i have 215's w 325 series tire very expensive ive had the truck for 5mos and 2 tires replaced so far one more and it'll have paid for itself ! espescially due to the size of these tires they love to pick up the sharp objects on the roads.

imho ins is a must

FWIW, my experience has been that the proclivity for a tire to pick-up sharp objects has more to do with the tire compound than the tire size, e.g., soft, high traction tread compounds seem to pick-up more objects that damage them. Of course, larger wheels tend to use lower profile tires, and lower profile tire tend to have softer compounds, so one might find a correlation with tire size.

If you have 24K miles on your tires then you don't have the Dunlop 20" tires I am guessing. The Dunlop 20"s are summer tires that are a soft compound and the tire has a large footprint--that combination makes it very prone to pick up road debris--they are wider than Corvette tires I believe. If I had the 19"s then no way would I get the tire protection.

I never buy the type of insurance in question here but I disagree with you about insurance not being gambling. It is the very definition of gambling. So is the stock market, which I do play.

And in fact, my apartment did actually burn down 6 years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I took out a $100 renters policy out and ended up collecting 20k 2 months later. Got to replace all my college furniture for free right before I got married(she would have thrown it out anyway) and then used the rest of the settlement and some savings to put down a 50% payment on our first house. The gamble paid that time.

What is that, a 12,000% APR return on investment?

insurance
 

insurance is a useful tool to reduce uncertainty. You pay a premium and on average you lose. I'd prefer to self insure and keep the premium on something like tires but I'm much more risk averse when it comes to something like my house and so I'm happy to pay the premium.

As Ard says, lower income people are generally more risk averse to smaller amounts of money and hence it's worth it to them to reduce the uncertainty on smaller things. So it's good for some but not for all.

So a self-described "philosopher and poet" decides to write about finance on his own website (are those hard to get?) and is suddenly an authority?

Jason Cunningham's Poetry, Philosophy and Quotes

Here is another example of his thought process:

"There is no substitute in life for experience, for it finishes the thought of an author suffering from writer's block."

Hmmm. Too deep for me, I must admit.

One can find something on the internet that supports one's own personal view, no matter what that view may be. But you already knew that.

Look, we could trade websites all day and all year and not 'get' the other's side. So let's agree to disagree, in the spirit of not tiring out our friends on this forum.