By Eric Peters, NMA Member and Syndicated Columnist
Why is it a bad idea to force people to buy car insurance — leaving aside the forcing them to buy it?
Well, because it enables the insurance mafia — how else to describe a business that uses threats of retaliation if you don’t agree to pay for its services? — to base what it forces you to pay it on criteria other than the only criteria that ought to be relevant as regards what it costs to insure anyone.
That being whether that individual has a record of incurring losses.
Not how many “tickets” they’ve received. Or how good, bad — or nonexistent — their credit is.
None of the above necessarily correlates with an increased likelihood of incurring losses in the future — in italics to harp on the insurance mafia’s assertions about probabilities as opposed to actualities.
To put it another way:
If a person has been driving for years, for decades, without ever having had what is styled an “accident” — which most such usually aren’t, being due to driver error and thus avoidable — then why should that person have to pay more for insurance when his driving record establishes him to be a low-risk driver?
Well, that’s easy.
It’s because there’s no money in it.
Or at least, less.
If you could choose to not buy car insurance — without being forced to give up driving (legally) then the insurance companies (which would no longer be insurance mafias) would be obliged to make you an offer you could refuse — in order to get (and keep) your business.
The cost of insurance would have to be worth it — to you, the person choosing freely to pay for it.
That is what’s called the free exchange of goods and services. It’s something you don’t hear much about anymore. Like the saying, it’s a free country.
Because of course it no longer is.
Ironically, it is probable more people would choose to buy insurance if they were free to choose not to — precisely because it would be worth it. Thus, solving the putative problem used to justify forcing people to buy insurance and, thereby, forcing them to pay exorbitantly for it. Which, in turn, results in a fair number of people choosing not to buy it — because it’s less costly to run the risk of driving without it.
One of them may run into you one day. It happens literally every day.
A thinking person might give that some thought. Might begin to wonder how it can be that there are so many uninsured drivers out there — and why they’re paying uninsured motorist coverage, in addition to the coverage they’re forced to buy — notwithstanding the requirement (in most states) that every driver buy insurance as a condition of being allowed to drive.
It’s kind of like what is styled “gun control,” isn’t it? The controlled don’t have guns — but the uncontrolled (who are the problem) do.
It’s worth thinking about.
But the mafia knows there is money in finding excuses to charge people more for what it can force them to buy — and that’s exactly what the insurance mafia does.
Because, of course, it can. The mafia has the power to make you pay — and so, it does.
You haven’t had an accident in years, if ever — but you did get that “ticket” last year.
Or perhaps you are a financially prudent person who does not buy things that cannot be paid for at the time of purchase; i.e.; someone without a history of applying for credit and making regular payments on things you could not afford to pay for when you bought them, which amounts to no credit, believe it or not. This, in turn, raises the cost of what the insurance mafia can force you to pay for by an astounding 72 percent.
It’s worth reiterating here that this extortion — how else would you style it? — is routinely performed in the absence of any record of “accidents,” or claims filed. The person with no or “poor” credit may have been bankrupted by a business failure — or an ex-spouse, who saddled him with bills he could not pay.
What has this to do with his driving?
The answer, of course, is nothing. At least, nothing specific that has to do with his driving. It is enough to impute future careless/reckless driving — and a greater likelihood of an “accident” (even if it never actually happens) to a driver whose financial affairs aren’t in order.
Even if his record of driving cannot be faulted.
In other words, what he has actually done (and not done) matters less than what the insurance mafia claims he might do, going forward — according to criteria that have nothing whatever to do with his actual driving thus far.
Is this not like charging a person who is not overweight, who does exercise, who does not smoke more for health insurance because he might become overweight, stop exercising and take up smoking?
Such things can happen.
But — once upon a different time — people were generally judged on what had happened, as a predictor of what was likely to happen. That changed — as regards insurance — when the latter became a mafia, which happened when it secured the backing of the government to threaten people with violent repercussions if they refused to buy its services.
And that’s why forcing people to buy insurance is such a bad idea.
Eric Peters lives in Virginia and enjoys driving cars and motorcycles. In the past, Eric worked as a car journalist for many prominent mainstream media outlets. Currently, he focuses his time writing auto history books, reviewing cars, and blogging about cars+ for his website EricPetersAutos.com.
Editor’s Note: The thoughts and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the National Motorists Association.
