GEICO, the second-largest vehicle insurance underwriter in the US, has decided it will no longer cover Tesla Cybertrucks. The company is terminating current Cybertruck policies and says the truck “doesn’t meet our underwriting guidelines.”

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Pretty sure they were one of the last major companies that would…

    Even if warranty pays for repairs to it, if it damages anything else the insurance still has to pay.

    The article mentions multiple examples of them just randomly shutting down during operation. That’s already bad. But this is going to be it’s first winter, it’s not surprising insurers don’t want to deal with it. They deal with large numbers, it’s not a question of “if” like an individual owner, its “when” for the insurer

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Class action lawsuits are gonna be a mother fucker

        Part of the purchase agreement of a Tesla agreeing to binding arbitration. This means no class action suit. You can opt out of this within the first 30 days, but you have to send a letter requesting it.

        How many Tesla owners do you think do that?

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          That assumes the court finds that enforceable. Usually they do, but a few times recently, they’ve said it’s not.

          • gramie@lemmy.ca
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            That’s one of the nice things about the law in Quebec. Binding arbitration clauses are illegal.

          • Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee
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            I mean in trumps court of law musk can’t lose.

            If dumpy wins, for sure no class action.

            If dumpy loses, his Supreme Court will still side with the conservative side anyway, so probably still no class action.

        • bluGill@fedia.io
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          2 months ago

          i don’t own a tesla, so if their cars injure me I can sue them*

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          Steam recently removed their arbitration clause, largely because paying for a thousand arbitration cases is worse than dealing with a class action.

          • locuester@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            I’ve heard that death by 1,000 arbitrations is a good way to make em regret it. Glad to see it’s true.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          Wow, I never thought I’d find an actual good argument for keeping independent car dealers as middlemen instead of allowing first-party sales, but here we are.

          • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            Can you connect the dots for me? Third party dealers always have idemnity? clauses anyways.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              Presumably anything you’d agree to while buying from an independent dealer would be between you and the dealer, not you and the manufacturer, right? I don’t understand how the manufacturer would be a party to the transaction.

              (It might be that I’m naive about how modern car sales work.)

              • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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                I’m pretty clueless too, but to me your assertion doesn’t hold up to the concept of recalls.

                The true answer is probably that we’re both wrong and the answer is that as a consumer: you lose, fuck you. Also fuck your family dog.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        A vehicle shutting down in the middle of the freeway can easily cause multiple accidents.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        The go pedal and the steering wheel are equivalent to a keyboard/mouse and are not physically connected to anything. If the car shuts off, the wheels go where they feel like with absolutely no driver control.

        • Auli@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Never thought of they how would you brake if the car shutoff.

              • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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                Definitely not as well but you can still use them. Cars didn’t even have vacuum assisted brakes up into the 1960s and 1970s

                • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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                  1 month ago

                  Yes, and they were designed with that in mind- brake pedals with more leverage for one…

                  My mom had a Ford ranger for a while that had lost its brake boost, it took a lot of force to get it to slow down, and that wasn’t even a heavy vehicle, this was back when a pickup was a two-seater…

          • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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            Did you really just draw an equivalency between Tesla’s software practices and the aerospace industry? Even Daddy Musk isn’t stupid enough to pretend those are the same.

            Also your assertion that there is “no such thing as off” blatantly displays your horrible lack of understanding that distributed computing still relies on electricity.

            Edit: since Tesla is apparently the same thing as Airbus, can you point me to the source code published by the relevant regulatory body that controls the Cybertruck’s steering mechanism?

              • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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                Yes, I fully understand the difference between analogy and equivalency. You claimed that fly by wire on an aircraft is exactly as safe and redundant as the steering wheel of a Tesla vehicle. That’s called an equivalency and is a demonstrably false statement. I never claimed that there were no redundancies to the power supplies, but it’s simply not relevant. You do understand that there are different regulations and rigors applied to an aircraft compared to a crappy car that hasn’t even passed any crash safety testing and hasn’t been certified by any engineering standards bodies, right?

          • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            Have you looked at the cybertruck’s manufacturing practices? Airplanes have redundancies for their redunancies and that’s why people use them. The cybertruck was built with the “go fast and break things” model, does not have redundancies, and actually removed some standard safety features found in every other car. Like tempered glass.

            Comparing a cyber truck to an airplane is like comparing a pinewood derby car to a military personnel carrier. One was made by a child. The other is engineered to keep as many soldiers alive as possible.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    God, I hope other places follow. I work in insurance and not only is everything about the cybertruck an absolute fucking nightmare to source, let alone find a shop for, every single goddamn owner is like the most insufferable chod. That goes for women too. Tesla drivers could already be a problem, but the truck owners are like regular Tesla owners gone feral.

    • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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      I hope other places follow

      Are they actually allowed to sell these pieces of shit elsewhere?

      Also is anyone else stupid enough to buy one?

      • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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        People knowingly buy stupid vehicles. I’m one of them. It’s expensive to drive, big, has expensive insurance and only seats two but I love it.

        • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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          I didn’t realise they only had two seats!

          Is that one for each of your brain cells? 😉

          • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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            Someone with more than two brain cells could easily look that up and and realize they’re talking about a different vehicle before insulting a complete stranger for no reason.

            • IGuessThisIsForNSFW@yiffit.net
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              I thought ‘expensive to drive’ would have given away it wasn’t a cybertruck, since the only good part about those things is that it’s an EV and probably doesn’t cost much to charge. I might not agree with your decision to drive a huge vehicle, but I’m not gonna call anyone an idiot for doing it.

              It’s also generally good form to not make spelling errors (realise) in a comment calling someone else stupid…

              • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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                2 months ago

                Please tell me the comment about the spelling mistake is some kind of weird humour (sic)

                • IGuessThisIsForNSFW@yiffit.net
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                  1 month ago

                  It is mostly tounge in cheek, but they did misspell realize in their comment and later edited it to correct it.

                  I mean if you’re gonna call someone else stupid, but you misspell it you’re kinda putting your foot in your own mouth no?

      • smokebuddy [he/him]@lemmy.today
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        they started taking orders from presales in Canada and they went through the entire list, I’m not sure if any have been delivered here yet though

    • Baggins@feddit.uk
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      chod

      Now there’s an insult I haven’t heard in a while.

      Take my upvote!

  • Pogogunner@sopuli.xyz
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    2 months ago

    More importantly, Anderson has eight vehicles. GEICO is only choosing to terminate the insurance coverage from Cybertruck and is actively pursuing renewal of his vehicle coverage for the rest. This leaves no doubt that GEICO’s issue is directly related to the Tesla Cybertruck and not to Anderson or other factors.

    Why would someone own 8 vehicles?

    Robert added, “It makes no sense, as there are other, riskier cars out there. Let me know if you recommend any insurer for the truck. I have eight cars with an amazing record. I will be canceling my entire Geico policy!! Bye-bye!”

    I can’t think of a vehicle that is more likely to be a risk to others than the Cybertruck. I’m sure insurance adjusters see how people use Tesla FSD in spite of its shortcomings. The truck is heavy as hell and breaks in all sorts of ways others vehicles don’t.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      Also, there have been no independent crash tests done so no insurance company can accurately assess the risk, so this is wholly unsurprising.

      Tesla have allegedly done their own crash tests, but they still have not released the data. It’s kinda what you’d expect when a government-regulation-hating techbro designs a “I got mine fuck you” vehicle.

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        If Geico, and presumably soon others, are angering the chuds by refusing to insure this, independent crash tests definitely occurred and they were not favorable.

        You don’t have to be an obnoxious YouTuber to crash a car.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          If Geico, and presumably soon others, are angering the chuds by refusing to insure this, independent crash tests definitely occurred and they were not favorable.

          When I said no independent crash tests had been performed, I was specifically referring to the IIHS since they’re the only ones who opinion really matters and they’ve stated they have not tested any Cybertruck. But yes, regardless of whether Tesla’s internal crash tests were performed by their staff or some other testing lab, the fact that they’re sitting on the results clearly indicates that they know just how poorly the crumplezone-less sharp-edged quality-uncontrolled ketaminemobiles fare.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          To be clear, I don’t know if that’s why GEICO is cancelling policies on Cybertrucks, but I’d bet heavily it’s a contributing factor. It could be that they decided the risk was worth it, until the trucks actually started coming out and the sheer number of recalls due to shitty manufacturing was just too much.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      Why would someone own 8 vehicles?

      Why does anyone have anything? If they can afford to collect the things they are interested in, they will have many of those kinds of things.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        What if they’re interested in naked pictures of children?

        I use an extreme example to point out that “the market will provide” is a terrible argument for the existence of anything.

        • theherk@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The gulf of difference kind of undercuts your point in this case. One is undoubtedly immoral and illegal. And it doesn’t change that part of the answer why somebody would have either is because they want that, which says nothing about it being a good thing.

          • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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            Mining several normal human lifetimes of metals and resources (and the CO2 released into the atmosphere in order to gather those materials) just for something to sit around unproductively is obviously immoral so I don’t understand the relevancy here.

    • Zak@lemmy.world
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      Why would someone own 8 vehicles?

      Car collectors exist, and I have the impression quite a few of them are among the Cybertruck’s early adopters.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        Honestly, a car collector is probably the best kind of person to have one I’d bet, given that they now exist out there. They don’t seem terribly safe for pedestrians and others to have around, so it they’re going to be out there in individuals hands, them being kept parked in some guys garage as some weird curiosity vehicle of the 2020s is probably better than being driven around on the daily as a pointy oversized commute vehicle

      • ramble81@lemm.ee
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        The H1 was basically a civilian tank. The H3 on the other hand was a reskinned Chevy TrailBlazer and fell apart just as easily as one.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      Why would someone own 8 vehicles?

      Because he’s a car enthusiast with a problem.

      (Source: I own six.)

      • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
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        Kinda funny how it sneaks up on you when you get the space. I have 7 vehicles split between my wife and I. Most of them were bought at bottom of the market. People act like I must be wealthy as they drive a new suv worth $20 more than my fleet. I could replace the whole spread for like $30k. I’ll add the qualifier that 2 are motorcycles and I’m totally, definitely, working on selling my prior daily. But $3k isn’t exactly life-changing. I imagine this is a fuckcars zone but it’s a hobby for people. Every hobby is destructive. It’s not like car enthusiasts are driving multiple cars at a time, so the fuel consumption over time is normal. And the thirstier cars tend to be broken more often!

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          I imagine this is a fuckcars zone but it’s a hobby for people.

          More than you know: even I use a bicycle as my daily-“driver,” LOL!

          Of the six cars I have, only one isn’t an old, unreliable project car and/or two-seater. Even then, I only have that because my parents essentially forced it upon me. (They have some kind of silly hang-up about having a cargo bike be my sole means of transporting the kids, other than public transit.)

          Perhaps ironically, good urbanism is what gives me the freedom to treat cars as a hobby instead of a necessity, and I firmly believe that’s the way it ought to be. It’s a lot like how people can be into horses while also still understanding that it’s a dumb idea to commute to work on horseback.

    • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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      Why would someone own 8 vehicles?

      My uncle was like that - he was a contractor and realtor. He had several work trucks, each for a specific purpose, plus one general purpose, and half of them had snowplows of various sizes. Most of them had something wrong with them that didn’t interfere with their specific purpose, but would have been a pain to deal with daily. Only new one was a minivan for driving clients to sites… Then he bought a house closer to town that had a flatbed truck left on it…

  • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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    Why are insurance companies the ones making the rational decision about saying it’s a dangerous piece of shit and not our transportation regulators? It needs to be banned.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      I don’t think insurance companies care of the trucks are dangerous per se. They care if they are expensive to repair, or prone to accidents which could attach liability to the policy holder and thereby the insurance company.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        I keep telling conservatives this. It makes sense to have some form of suspicion around a message when some corporation has a profit motive behind it. For instance, climate change and companies selling solar panels (although I wish they wouldn’t put SO much effort into that faint connection).

        However, that also applies for the inverse - that when insurance drops coverage for Florida homes, it’s because climate change is real and they know it will hurt their bottom line.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        Funny enough, that’s exactly what the article says.

    • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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      Because insurance companies are filled with bean-counters (not intended as an insult, I’m a bean-counter in a different field) who want to come out ahead. That’s why the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) exists. You’d think organization that does crash tests and promotes new technology would be a government organization, but nope, it’s insurance providers that want to minimize payouts.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      I don’t see anything in the article suggesting it’s particularly dangerous, only that it’s very expensive to fix, and in a collision will probably cause significant damage to the other vehicle (though that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily cause injury).

      The US doesn’t exactly approve or deny vehicles in general; any vehicle that conforms to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards can be sold, as far as I know. And I don’t see any section that covers safety of the other party in a collision, unfortunately. Maybe write your reps and suggest they add one.

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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        The US doesn’t exactly approve or deny vehicles in general; any vehicle that conforms to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards can be sold

        Sorry, I’m not getting the distinction here. Isn’t a vehicle that conforms to the FMVSS the same as one that is approved?

        Or is the check against FMVSS is not done ahead of time, but only later in any lawsuits?

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de
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    those things are very poorly made and all the most important parts are made of cheap plastic that an average person can literally rip off with his or her bare hands

    • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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      “their” is shorter than “his or her”

      (Even if you don’t care about gender inclusiveness, they is just more convenient)

      • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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        If you’re correcting, sincerely, then good job.

        If you’re trolling… also, good job.

        Either way 👍

        • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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          I wasn’t strictly meaning to correct so much as point out a reason why it’s more concise. I value the inclusive motivation too, if that was hard to tell; I just think there is another reason even if you don’t care about inclusion.

          It seems a lot of people are actively opposed to it though, not sure why. I’m just asking questions, you know?

          😉

          • scarabic@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I’ll bet a lot of times people just start typing “he” and tack on “or she” when they catch themselves.

      • DigitalDilemma@lemmy.ml
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        The best English literature doesn’t follow the basis of most convenient or shortest. Sometimes there are other reasons to choose a word of phrase.

        The plot of Romeo and Juliet could be rewritten in a paragraph but probably wouldn’t have had the same impact.

        • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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          True, but this isn’t prose or high literature. What reason do you suggest why “his or her” would be preferable to “their” in this context?

          The prescriptivist “It’s grammatically incorrect” argument doesn’t hold much water when it has been used since middle English.

          In a poem, I can see the thought:
          “I tried to fit the cadence of this clause
          Within the measure of this poem’s form
          Which has in past and present be the norm
          By which this poem, too, seeks to adhere.
          This is my authorial choice’s cause
          for my decision not to use a “their”.” But if to find an alternate way to word
          Your writing’s pronouns strikes you as absurd
          I nonetheless opine that you still ought
          To make the token effort to include
          With “their” all people by the same respect
          That you for yourself would from them expect.
          Refusing this, I feel, would be quite rude.

            • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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              2 months ago

              Then the original comment would read

              hose hings are very poorly made and all he most imporan pars are made of cheap plasic ha an average person can lierally rip off wih his or her bare hands

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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            Comments here are a short form of writing, therefore people are allowed to phrase things and say things however they would like to. You won’t know someone’s intent before reading, so the way they write makes a difference.

          • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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            I once heard it described as a “3 day relationship between a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old that left 6 people dead”

  • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    No word from the insurance company itself? This whole article seems to be based on a single tweet by a cybertruck owner. For all we know his might be modded in a way that they dropped the insurance on it.

    • fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      More specifically, the only source the article even gives is a link to a reddit post with a screenshot of the tweet, of which doesn’t have a direct link to the tweet. This is half assed journalism at best, considering they even quoted the original screenshot wrong.

      Edit: lol they couldn’t even get the person’s name straight. It changed from Robert Stevenson to Anderson after the email portion. Why’s this article even here?

    • 0x0@programming.dev
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      This whole article seems to be based on a single tweet

      Ah yes, news these days…

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    2 months ago

    Makes sense. It’s not a truck, car or SUV, it’s a cosplay vehicle. Lego vehicles from the toy store will outlast this shitshow.

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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    “transparent metal” that breaks if it gets too hot, gets wiped with a microfiber cloth, or tapped by a wedding ring… 😂

    I want to feel bad for cyber truck owners, but at the same time these problems are not new and not unknown. So if you know that something is known to have problems, and you still buy it, don’t be so shocked that it has problems for you too.

    It was only a matter of time before insurance companies did something. I mean is it really that surprising that a company known for not wanting to pay out money if they can avoid it would want to not insure a rolling money pit?

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    2 months ago

    As much as I want it to be true, I couldn’t find the original tweet that the reddit post mentions. It’s not on that users profile when looking on Nitter.