It’s a well-known fact that if you have a car, you should have car insurance, but does this rule apply to billionaires?
Regardless of how much money a person has, it’s usually a legal requirement to have some form of car insurance if you’re driving on the road. There are a few exceptions, but even a billionaire like Bill Gates will need car insurance.
Read on to learn more about car insurance, the rules behind it, and how much it costs to insure the car of a billionaire.
Expensive Car, Expensive Insurance
In the United States, it’s a legal requirement to have car insurance on your road vehicle, with just two exceptions. In New Hampshire, you can opt-out of car insurance, but you must be able to prove financial responsibility – this is where billionaires would fare quite well.
Also, in Virginia, you can venture out as an uninsured driver, so long as you pay the state a fee of five hundred dollars per year. However, this doesn’t mean you get any kind of protection, and you’re still liable should you end up crashing your vehicle.
With that information in mind, it isn’t too hard to understand why even a billionaire would need auto insurance when they’re on the road. They might have one hundred billion dollars, but they still need to conform to the law.
Although, yes, there’s a great chance that, somewhat bizarrely, the person who owns the insurance policy might have more money than the company they’ve obtained it from. That’s just a fact of life and it doesn’t distract from the fact that they do need it.
If you’re a super-rich billionaire, you’re almost definitely going to drive a luxurious and powerful supercar. With these vehicles, you’ll need to get car insurance from a specialist provider, and your premium is going to be considerably expensive.
Of course, that’s not an issue for a billionaire, who could probably buy out their insurance company if they so desired. According to valuepenguin.com, the average insurance cost on a Lamborghini Aventador was $7,949 per year, in 2018.
This is more than three times the average cost to insure a standard, affordable family car or hatchback. In 2019, the top two most expensive cars to insure, on average, were both Tesla models, which is a favored manufacturer for the rich and famous.
Ultimately, it’s a bit of a moot point, as a billionaire would happily pay tens of thousands of dollars on insurance and not lose any sleep over it. If they’re spending half a million dollars on a car, another ten thousand dollars a year isn’t any big deal.
The Benefits Of The Rich And The Famous
It might seem counterintuitive, but if you’re a super-rich billionaire, you’ll enjoy lower insurance premiums – even on a supercar. This is because most billionaires tend to be working professionals, intelligent, sensible, and residing in nicer, safer parts of the world.
If a totally average person went out to find car insurance on their newly-purchased LaFerrari, they’d have a hard time finding a sensible premium. In fact, they’d have a hard time finding a premium at all, as insurance companies do take a big risk offering protection to such people.
Reportedly, there are more than a few bonuses for the super-rich when it comes to insurance and motor ownership. For example, a billionaire can afford original parts if they’re in an accident, while the average driver might have to settle for cheaper, aftermarket parts.
If you’re insured with a high-end provider, your options for repair shops are much more open, with some letting you take your vehicle wherever you so desire. Conversely, the more run-of-the-mill providers will have specific repair shops that you must take your vehicle to, regardless of how good they are.
Furthermore, if a super-rich billionaire is involved in a car crash that totally destroys their vehicle, they’re almost certainly going to have a backup available. If not, they can waltz into a rental office and take the best car they have, no questions asked.
Alternatively, if their car is truly destroyed, they can likely have a new one delivered before the day is out. These options are almost totally out of reach of the average car owner, adding another layer to the benefits of being a billionaire.
Ultimately, all these benefits and stacks of cash mean nothing where the law is concerned, and these super-rich individuals will still need car insurance.