full or partial car insurance?

Well for the past 3 years we've been carrying only liability on our cars. Our cars are a 99 toyota corolla and a 00 ford focus. The savings were substantial because we were under 25 for a chunk of those years, and our rates have been dropping.

However since we've moved to NE it's gone up. When we got here unfortunately we decided to go with liability again. Also unfortunately my DH had three car accidents within a span of 3 months (yeah probably why I don't buy a new car). But seriously I wonder what is the break even point of coverage and should we have been carrying full coverage?

Well where we live it cost approximately $1k more for full coverage and that's with a $1k deductible. In CA it was the same thing, so we dropped it. The cost of either of our cars $4k would be made back in 4 years right? Actually sooner if you consider we'd have to fork over a $1k deductible.

But on another message board someone said they paid for full insurance because they couldn't afford to replace their car. However the difference in full coverage versus liability was a lot less. Mine's high because it's a state run insurance program, so bad drivers like my DH is paid for by good drivers. Thank god he had all his accidents here, not in CA.

I thought about it and decided, I would still wouldn't cover my car if I couldn't afford to replace it, and save the few bucks. Why? Because of that stupid high deductible. If you have to fork over $1k anyway, you could set aside the difference every month into a car fund and buy a cheap used car for $2k probably by the time your car was totalled if not more.

Of course this is all based on the premise that you'll save the difference. I know I'm not saving the difference, but I like not having a deductible. Of course if DH has another accident I'm not fixing his car he can drive it all beat up, if it drives and if not, then he's getting a $1k car period.