Insurance Companies Need To Be Regulated Better
I'm one of those people who tends to believe that insurance is kind of a necessary evil. We need health insurance because we never know if that catastrophic illness will be coming. We need homeowners insurance because we never know when a tree will fall on it. We need car insurance because of that other guy who might hit us,... on and on.
The first problems arise when rates keep going up, and we haven't really used our insurance at all. Health insurance rates go up an average of 13% every year, yet more and more things aren't covered (mine doesn't cover physicals); that, plus ever rising deductibles. My car insurance has gone up, even though my wife and I both have relative new vehicles with multiple airbags, and no serious accidents in years (she got hit by someone back in '99, but the other person's insurance covered it). The insurance for my house has stayed pretty steady, which is nice, so I can't complain much about it.
However, I just finished reading a news story about the people in Louisiana and Mississippi who haven't gotten satisfaction from their insurance companies. Some of these people paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars of coverage, both homeowners and flood, and received many thousands less because insurance companies decided that the claims these people were putting in didn't "quite fit" the terms of the contract; wow. One guy had paid for $300,000 in coverage for his house, another $250,000 in flood insurance, and has received $3,000; that's just got to be against the law.
Well, at least thousands of people are suing, but the courts are clogged, and some people will be waiting years before their cases can even come to the docket. That, plus the insurance industry, which has recorded record profits in the past number of years, has the funds to vigorously defend themselves, while many of these people have pretty much broken the bank just to find new places to live.
In my state, OB/GYN's are leaving in droves because their malpractice insurance has jumped greatly; some of them are paying nearly $300,000 a year for coverage. That's ridiculous if you ask me, but I'm sure the same thing is happening in many other states.
If ever there was an industry that needed to be better regulated by the federal government, it's this one. Instead of the politicians spending time chasing steroids, investigating the WWE, or trying to figure out if one of their own is homosexual or not, they need to be working on ways to protect the rest of us from these money whores, who pay lobbyists great amounts of money and put a lot of their money into the campaigns of these very same politicians.
Yeah, like that's gonna happen any time soon.
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Can't comment too much on this one, our Catfish
Except to say that I am soon to learn what car insurance is all about. I have to go see about that before the end of September. In time, I shall have my own grumblings to share, no doubt.
Don't know anything about getting car insurance. Have ya got any advice as to what I should look out for?
I don't know Canadian insurance, IOAW,...
but if it's anything like here, make sure you get full collision coverage. Also, decide on the deductible you'd like. Many people go with a $500 deductible because it saves money, but if you can't readily put your hands on $500 then that's not the best deal in the long run. Don't go any higher, but you could reduce to as low as $100. But shop around, because you can get some nice deals from the right company.
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A question, our Catfish (sheepish)
Errr...Our Catfish, I hate to unveil my ignorance, but I suppose now is the time to do so...what is a $500 deductible?
A deductible, IOAW,...
is the amount one has to pay outside of the amount insurance will pay if there's a report made on your car. The higher the deductible, the lower your insurance payments overall, but that amount would have to come out of your pocket if you file a claim on your car. In essence, if you reported $1,000 in damage to your insurance company, they'd pay $500 and you'd pay $500.
Services and Stuff, a web portal of quality services and products
Ohh, I see, our Catfish. Thank you.
I have heard the term, but never understood what it meant. It makes sense now. I appreciate the explanation.
I won
Hi Catfish,
I was lucky that Australia had an Insurance Board of Review when I had a problem some years ago. My lungs filled with fluid because of a heart problem and the doctor told me I had to take heavy-duty medicines for life. I had a 'trauma benefits' clause in my insurance contract and paid extra for it but at the time of my first medical crisis my condition, 'atrial fibrillation' was not named as a qualifying condition. I had another crisis event a couple of years later and by then the condition was named in the policy, with a level of seriousness specified. I guessed they would not define my events as serious enough and was reluctant to waste my energy claiming but some people pressed me to try and I did. Sure enough, they told me my condition was not serious and that's where they made their mistake. If they had said 'not serious enough' I might have accepted that I wasn't going to get anything out of it. Instead I told them they had disregarded the advice of my doctors who told me my condition was very serious. I put my brain to work looking at everything the insurance company staff had said to me and I discovered that anyone who had a heart attack was paid without question. I thought about what I knew about my condition and heart attacks and realized that my condition had more ongoing consequences for my life than many heart attacks had for their sufferers. I put my points down on paper and sent them off to the insurance company. There was little response and after a while I received a letter where they said there was no evidence I had the condition. Wow! They had reports from two hospitals where I had been in intensive care as well as reports from my cardiologist. I hate corruption and such a statement was good enough to tell me they had no intention of believing anything I sent them, so I found the address of the Australian Insurance Board of Review and sent them a brief description of events and a request for them to review my case. I also sent a copy to the Insurance company. My main weapon was to compare it to the position of a heart attack victim and suggest it was an inequitable situation. Equity is a big PC buzzword. The Board wrote back to me and said they believe my case was within their jurisdiction. They asked me to present my case to the Insurance one more time and if there was no satisfactory outcome after forty days they would review it.
The Insurance people sent my papers to a Consultant cardiologist and he told them my condition was serious and they must pay. I don't believe they would have taken this final step if they didn't know I had approached the Commission. I set a precedent.
So I agree Catfish, every state should have a Commission to keep the Insurance sharks in their cage.
Keeping contact here but still blogging at
http://hughmacdougall.com