Insurance is a vital part of capitalism, in fact when capitalism was first invented in Venice at the opening of the renaissance it was insurance, that is the sharing of risks and the sharing of rewards for the risk takers. It is why we call stocks in companies SHARES!
But, modern American insurance is now just a corporate theft that we are required to buy if we operate a motor vehicle, or plan to visit a healthcare provider, and the insurance industry has become expert in ways not to honor their end of that compact with the public.
I have a couple examples for you, State Farm was my auto insurer for nearly all my driving life from 1973 till 2013. That year I was hit by a careless driver who rear ended my BRAND NEW $60k BMW, not 4,000 miles on the odo, not even two months old yet, and because the other driver also was insured by State Farm they were entirely responsible for the damages. Had he been with any other company SF would have gone to bat for me to get all I was due, but because they were responsible they did all they could to avoid liability. And I paid extra for enhanced coverage’s too. The state where I resided had a new diminished value law that allows insured to recover the lost value of their vehicle after having been in a wreck. State Farm’s adjusters insisted there is no such thing as diminished value, they offered me $1,000 to drop my claim, and they implied that they would spend ANY amount of money to prevent me from collecting. It took them two years but they did exactly that, they found a lawyer who had never done an arbitration and the guy gave me zero in spite of two appraisals of the vehicle’s new value that was at least 16k less than it would have been had the accident never happened. It bankrupted me.
Then, in January 2017 I was determined to leave the country for at least 4 years or till America came to its senses and impeached fat ass. I had to return for a healt reason that October though and when I bought a car in April of this year I was charged triple what I paid in 2017, over $2,100 per year premiums because the insurance companies claimed I had a “lapse in coverage.” Technically that is true, I did not buy insurance for a year, but I also was not driving or owning a car that whole time, I was not even in the country. They are using a loophole in the law to gouge me and you are next if the industry is not reined in. The law allows them to charge far higher rates to drivers who operate motor vehicles domestically without insurance. That is what law makers and insurance companies call a lapse in coverage and they are allowed this as incentive to drivers not to allow their insurance policies to lapse. Being out of the country though is NOT operating a vehicle without coverage. I did not drive one foot the whole time I was gone. And you have to pay this outrageous rate for a full year before it starts to decline again. I paid $432 every six months premium on that 2013 BMW with enhanced coverage and low deductibles, I have replaced it with another BMW of the same make and model, year, but now the car is 6 years old. Even though I am also 6 years more experienced and 60 with a CLEAN driving record I am paying over $2,100 per year, rather than $864 per year. And that is on a car that is worth $16k not $60k. There is NO justice in this.
Insurance is now just theft but then so is most of American life now. Get used to being robbed.
