Friday, February 26, 2010

Tales of Obama's Car Insurance and Mad Hatters

Evidently Obama, when he finally got big-boy pants, also purchased a car and some auto insurance. Then things get a little hazy.

I had a beat-up old car. And I won't name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company, let's call it Acme Insurance in -- in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended, and I called up Acme and said, "You know, I'd like to see if I can get my car repaired." And they laughed at me over the phone.

Because really, this was set up not to actually provide insurance, what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn't serious insurance.

PowerLine has a few questions about that narrative, assuming that it's true.

Automobile insurance (like health insurance) is a heavily regulated industry. In some states, all auto insurance policies are required to include collision coverage. If the cost of the repairs exceeds the value of the "beat-up old car," you get the value of the car. In other states, liability insurance is required but collision coverage is optional. If you prefer to take your chances, you can choose to forgo collision coverage. Obama is a reasonably bright guy; is he telling us that he bought an insurance policy that didn't provide for repairs if he had an accident, but didn't know it?

At the very least, Obama demonstrated that he really is on another planet. Auto insurance that "wasn't serious"?

He expected what: a Continental Mark V as a free rental-car?

2 comments:

Grim said...

My insurance company once sent me to 'an authorized glass replacement service' after some drunken knucklhead broke the window out of my parked car. The guy didn't have the right parts or tools, didn't have any idea how the door was disassembled on that model car, and ended up driving a bolt all the way through the door and three inches out the other side before he noticed. "No problem!" he said, clipping it off with bolt cutters, grinding it down flush, and then painting it over with some of the matching touch-up paint for that model.

At least he had matching touch up paint for the manufacturer, right? No, actually, he didn't; I did, kept in the trunk with the tools I used to work on the car.

Not that this story is at all relevant to Obama's, but since we're on the subject of funny car insurance stories.

neomom said...

So the smartest, most brilliant President EVAH (and a Harvard Law grad) didn't read his insurance contract? And we are supposed to trust him to make better decisions for us than we could on our own? Really?

btw - if he was rear-ended, why didn't he go after the other guy's insurance?

This was either completely made up or Obama is a bigger moron than we thought.