Temporary car insurance and how I wasted my money

How Owning a Lemon Affects Temporary Car Insurance

I currently own a terrible, terrible car. This thing is a complete piece of junk, and I would like nothing more than to see it crushed to a cube in one of those junkyard machines. There are about a million reasons why it's awful to own a lemon, but this month I found the million and first: temporary car insurance. Allow me to explain.

It all started when a friend of mine asked to borrow my car for the week. I owed him a big favour, so I couldn't say no, but I warned him that my car was a complete lemon and would likely break down or cause him to get into an accident if he wasn't careful because something was always going wrong with it. He already knew that, and was planning on taking out a temporary car insurance policy for the week to protect himself. And because he was calling in a favour, that meant I had to help pay for it! That's right, owning a lemon means that you can't even lend the car out without it costing you money, as your friends are too scared to drive it unless they get temporary insurance!

Well, the week passed without incident, and my friend returned the car. Of course, the very next day when I tried to leave for work the thing wouldn't start, so I had to take it into the mechanic for the 100th time and get myself a rental car. I have terrible luck with rental cars too, so there was no way I was driving it without the insurance. So for the second time in two weeks I had to pay for temporary car insurance because of my awful car. And what's worse, nothing even happened to the rental car so it turned out to be a waste of money.

Which leads me to the final indignity. Later that month, my cousin and I were on vacation in Florida and wanted to rent a car. At the agency, I flat out refused to get the temporary car insurance, arguing that we only needed the car for the weekend and I wasn't going to pay a third time, even for a two-day policy. I was taking a stand on principle. Of course, when I was driving to the beach the next day my hand slipped and I sideswiped the car in the next lane, damaging both cars. Without any temporary car insurance, I was on the hook for both bills, and my cousin wouldn't pay a dime because I was the one who was against getting the insurance.

So, to recap, my awful lemon of a car caused me to buy temporary car insurance twice in two weeks and never use it, and the frustration of that caused me to NOT buy it the one time I actually did need it. I'm starting to think it might be cheaper to just cut my loses and get a new car.

Jazz Blues