What mecanique actually covers, and what it does notWhat mecanique actually covers, and what it does not

Almost every driver in Lebanon has mecanique. Far fewer could tell you what it pays for, and the gap between those two facts is where a bad week begins.

Here is the whole thing in one line: mecanique protects other people from you. It does not protect you, and it does not protect your car.

Everything below follows from that sentence.

What the compulsory cover is for

Compulsory motor insurance exists so that someone you injure is not left with nothing. It is a social floor, not a product designed around your interests. It is required by law, it is cheap relative to everything else on a car, and it is doing a job that has almost nothing to do with the vehicle you are driving.

That is not a criticism. It is what it was built for. The problem is only that its name, its price and its universality lead people to file it mentally under "I have car insurance", which is a different thing entirely.

What it does not cover

Read this list slowly, because most people are surprised by at least one item.

• Your own car. Any damage to it, in any accident, including one that was entirely the other driver's fault where the other driver turns out to be uninsured or unfindable.
• Your own injuries. Yours and, depending on the policy, your passengers'.
• Theft. Of the car or from it.
• Fire.
• Natural perils. Flood, hail, falling masonry, a tree in a storm.
• Anything while parked and unattended. The scrape in the car park is yours.

The scenario that costs people the most is the ordinary one. You are at fault, at low speed, and the other vehicle is expensive. The other car gets repaired. Yours does not, and you pay for it out of pocket while still making whatever payments you owe on it.

So what is all risk

All risk, or comprehensive, adds your own vehicle to the picture: collision damage whoever is at fault, theft, fire, and usually natural perils. The details vary by insurer far more than people expect, which is the actual argument for comparing rather than renewing on autopilot.

The honest way to think about the decision is not "which is better". All risk is better and costs more. The question is whether the difference in premium is worth less to you than the risk of paying for your own car.

All risk usually earns its price when:

• The car is worth enough that replacing it out of pocket would genuinely hurt
• It is financed, in which case the lender may require it anyway
• You drive it daily, in traffic, and park it on the street
• Being without a car for a month would cost you income

It often does not when:

• The car is old enough that the payout would be modest
• The annual premium is a significant fraction of what the car is worth
• It sits in a garage most of the week

Nobody can make that call for you from the outside. What a broker can do is put the two numbers next to each other so you are deciding rather than guessing.

What to check, whichever you choose

These are the clauses that decide what actually happens at claim time, and they are the ones nobody reads at purchase.

Agreed value or market value. This single distinction produces more angry phone calls than any other. Market value means the insurer pays what the car is worth on the day it is written off, which will be less than you think and less than you paid. Agreed value fixes the figure in advance. Know which one you have bought.

The deductible. The first slice of every claim, which you pay. A cheaper premium with a large deductible is not automatically cheaper.

Natural perils. Sometimes included, sometimes an add-on, occasionally absent. In a country with hail and floods this is not a footnote.

Who is allowed to drive it. Named drivers, or anyone with your permission. Get this wrong and the claim is refused on a technicality.

Where it is repaired. Insurer's garage, your choice of garage, or a list. It affects both the waiting time and the argument about parts.

Currency. What the premium is in, what the payout is in, and whether either can be repriced.

Renewal is the moment to look, not the moment to click

Mecanique renews annually, and the path of least resistance is to renew whatever you had. That is how people end up on the same cover for a decade while the car, the traffic and their finances all change around it.

A five minute check at renewal is worth more than any amount of research at purchase, because at renewal you have a year of real information: what you actually drove, what nearly happened, what a repair would have cost you.

On prices

You will find figures quoted online for what mecanique costs. We are not going to add to them, because motor pricing in Lebanon moves and a stale number in an article is worse than no number at all. Compulsory cover is inexpensive relative to all risk. Beyond that, the only price worth knowing is the one for your car, your history and this year's rates.

If you want that comparison rather than an average, we will request it across several insurers and lay the options side by side, which is the part that is genuinely difficult to do yourself.

This article is general information about how motor cover works in Lebanon, not advice about your particular circumstances. Your policy wording decides what you are actually covered for.