Shocking news! Paying more, getting less!

It’s called greed.

If you live the great state of New York, you’ve witnessed a stark climb in the cost of insuring your vehicle. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that auto insurers operating in New York were paying out less in claims.

Says Newsday:

Auto insurers earned $10.5 billion in premiums in New York State in 2005, a jump of nearly 29 percent from $8.2 billion in 2000, according to a report by [New York City Comptroller William] Thompson’s office. But during the same period, the report found, insurers’ losses dropped by more than 20 percent, from $6.4 billion to $5.1 billion. [emphasis added]

The insurance companies say it’s not their fault (shocked, shocked I am that they’d say this). Says Bernie Bourdeau, president of the New York Insurance Association:

Companies would have lower rates if they didn’t have to go to a bureaucrat for permission. I don’t dispute that in some instances rates are too high, but it’s because companies can’t get approval to lower them. [emphasis added]

State bureaucrats make it hard to reduce rates, says Bernie. Oh, really?

There’s a word to describe that kind of reasoning. [Insert your favorite perjorative epithet here.] It’s pure crap. How hard did an industry that saw premiums rise nearly a third in a year ask bureaucrats to lower those egregious rates? Or did those bureaucrats not listen very hard?

Corporations exist to maximize shareholder income. Sure, they may do a few nice things along the way to profit-making, but in our modern era of greed they’re not going to stop ripping off Joe and Jane Citizen unless someone puts a legislative gun to their heads.

The state Assembly should force the bureaucrats to force the insurers give us back about $1.5 billion in lower claims. (We won’t talk here about insurance companies’ campaign contributions to state senators and assembly members. Or should we?)

We’re paying too much in premiums. The companies are paying less in claims. That’s not fair. And corporate greed, combined with a lame-ass excuse, is a principal reason.

(By the way, how is your state/nation/province doing?)

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