chk@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (C. Harald Koch) (05/16/89)
[Look brad! there's a References line!] In article <172@attcdso.UUCP> ram@attcdso.UUCP (R. Meesters, Tech Support, AT&T Canada DSO ) writes: [...] >The benefits: [...] Lower insurance rates - less small and large claim >accidents. Large insurance claims (and the resulting large insurance premiums) are more a result of the large prices car manufacturers charge for replacement parts, and the large prices everyone charges to work on cars. An example: Recently my wife's car got dinged in a parking lot. The damage was so slight she didn't even notice it for a day. The car is a 1989 Chevy Cavalier. The damage: the left front headlight assembly was smashed. the left front corner of the hood was dented in. the left front corner of the left front body panel was dented so that it bends over the hood, making it impossible to open the hood. the front bumper was cracked. the front grill is chipped. The damage looks, and is, quite minor, except that it affects three large body panels on the car. The car is three weeks old, and has less than 5000km, so the parts all get replaced. Then the panels get rust-proofed, repainted, and have a paint protector and "PermaShine" applied. The repair estimate is $2488. roughly $400 of that is labour; the rest is the replacement parts. The estimate to repair the dented panels, instead of replacing them, lowers the total by less than $500. This is, in my opinion, ridiculously expensive. That's 25% of the purchase price of the car! I shudder to think of what serious damage would cost. Until costs like this come down, high insurance claims, and thus high insurance premiums, will remain. -- C. Harald Koch NTT Systems, Inc., Toronto, ON Canada chk@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca, chk@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu, chk@chkent.UUCP