Ambulance insurance.
My state and country has a lot of compulsory and default insurance, but for some reason “Ambulance Insurance” isn’t one of them. It’s not an enormous bill if it comes in - maybe $1000, but that can be a hit when you’re living week-to-week on $30. And when you get a better job, it’s not amazingly expensive when added as an option to something like dental/optical.
Title insurance is generally paid at closing for a one-time fee, and is as much to protect your lender as it is for you. Set it and forget it.
Private mortgage insurance is different and will generally be required by the lender if your equity is not at least 20% of value. It gets paid with your mortgage payments.
I have term life, umbrella. My financial advisors recommended that my umbrella policy cover an amount up to my total assets in case someone tries to sue the living shit out of me. I asked why would someone do that? You never know until they do.
Don’t buy extended warranties. They are not insurance even though the OP includes them, and even the legal ones are are a big money maker for the sellers. They are service contracts. By law the only party allowed to call something a warranty is the manufacturer. This, in part, is what got one car “extended warranty” seller in trouble.
There are stories about people who go to a hospital emergency room that is in their insurance company’s network, then are treated by a doctor who is not, which you are not in a good position to negotiate when you are an ER patient, even if you are conscious. It’s reprehensible.
The former is what I’m used to, and is required in my experience. The latter? PMI != title insurance, but from your description is also ‘required’ in that case.
Right. Based on the OP’s specifications, these are both conditionally mandatory and so probably not what the OP is looking for.
I’ve got professional liability insurance. It’s not required by anyone but if a distillery I design explodes I want to be able to have it covered. It very cheap insurance for a ton of piece of mind.
Lenders policy is required, owner’s policy is not.
There are two policies, one to protect the lender’s interest, the other to protect yours. Unless you default on the loan the lender is only slightly interested in defects of your title.
On our last purchase, loan policy was ~$2500, and buyer’s was $800 additional. On our previous home we found out years later that the builder of the subdivision had built our driveway across our neighbors land. The mortgage company couldn’t care less as long as we were making payments. The fact that our neighbor had parked a Bobcat (the construction vehicle, not the Mercury hatchback POS) on the “encroaching” section of the driveway was an issue for the Owner’s Policy issuer. The legal bills were over $10,000 and the purchase of the easement was many times that. Our negotiating position would have been much weaker if I was footing the legal bills.
I have never heard of such insurance. I thought that maybe you were referring to title lock insurance, which is reportedly a scam.
Interesting. I too have never heard of an Owners title policy. Thanks for the explanation and anecdote.
I await a lawyer’s arrival in this discussion to tell me I’m quite wrong and got scammed, maybe twice.
The closing attorney was a longtime friend, but come on, he’s still a lawyer!
If? Is there something you’re not telling us there saint Germain?
At the moment I don’t need any insurance besides medical and auto; I would get both of those whether or not they were required. Other than that … I actually did get travel insurance for a big trip related to my son’s college graduation, which ended up being virtual due to Covid.
I got all my money back, though I am not sure if it was because I had insurance, or simply due to refund policies of the hotel and airline. Still, it was good to get a full refund.
I don’t intend to travel much any more (been there, done that) but from now on, if/when I do travel, I will spring for travel insurance.
Life insurance, of course - though we’re gradually reducing that due to reduced need.
Long-term care: We’re in the same position as many: too many assets to qualify for Medicaid nursing home care, too little to self-fund such care.
Umbrella policy: got that when my son started driving. It’s not terribly expensive. Though it did require us to up the liability on our regular auto (or home?) policy a bit.
We generally don’t bother with trip insurance though if we have a big trip planned I might go for it (I think I sprung for it for one train trip - which we actually nearly did have to cancel due to illness).
And yeah, extended warranties on some appliances. Anymore, they are so complex due to the electronics, which cost almost as much to repair as to replace the entire appliance - that it seems worth it. The stores wouldn’t push them if they weren’t generally profitable, but they have paid off several times.
We have paid for title insurance for ourselves (weirdly, with the latest refinance, I don’t think the lender required one for their part!). The owner’s policy was a one-time thing when we bought the house - never had to repurchase it with all the refinancing.
Pet insurance. Having lost two pets within nine days back in May, (kitty to bone cancer, dog to kidney failure) I’m glad I had the assist for those bills. And you never know when Muffy or Spot is going to run in front of a car or eat something they shouldn’t.
Although I have medical insurance, I will not agree to any diagnostics/therapeutics until I know they’re covered. Sure, the doctors and nurses find me a pain in their asses, but I’ve saved some money.
When I was being discharged after cardiac artery stent placement, a nurse brought me my medications I was due to take. I had everything at home except for two new drugs we’d be picking up on the way home, so I declined the meds.
It turned a bit complicated, but eventually they removed the meds from my chart/bill saving me $80.
I urge people to question their medical care.
In 38 years of owning vehicles, we’ve had maybe 2 or 3 insurance claims - most recently, the deer that ran in front of me about 15 years ago. We’ve more than covered the $1000 deductible with the lower premiums over those decades.
We also take travel insurance every time we book a cruise - just in case we have to cancel. My mom and dad were going to take a cruise for their 50th anniversary, but he had a heart attack and died as they were headed to the port, so fortunately, Mom didn’t have to deal with an additional financial bite on top of everything else. Lesson learned for me.
And I’ve carried additional vision and dental insurance for my husband and me. Once he joins me on Medicare, we’ll have a look at all the supplemental plans and figure out if it’s best to keep the insurance thru my pension or get an advantage plan. Not looking forward to figuring that out…
I have an umbrella policy.
I bought a gap policy on the last car I bought, then thought better of it and cancelled it, applying the refund to the principal. Unless you think you’re going to total the car in the first couple years, I don’t think it’s a winning strategy.
Required by my employer, but I contribute:
3x salary life insurance, $178/mo, employer pays half
LTD 66 2/3%, $54/mo, employer pays half
Not required:
Dental $10/mo
Vision $8/mo
$2m umbrella policy, IIRC $250/year