The “pay at the pump” auto insurance plan proposed by Andrew Tobias (Transportation, Feb. 7) is well intentioned but ill-conceived. It addresses only a symptom-increasing premiums-of deeper, far more complex problems.
Tobias has conveniently ignored issues like insurance fraud, unsafe vehicles and vehicles that are too easily damaged by minor impacts, unsafe (not just drunk) drivers, unsafe roads, and a system of civil justice that continually expands the concept of personal liability at the expense of the notion of individual responsibility.
There is also the issue of preventable crime, such as auto theft. More than 1.5 million cars are stolen annually, costing Americans more than $8 billion.
Between crime and fraud, the cost to the premium-paying public is more than $17 billion annually, or about 10 cents of every property and liability premium dollar. What will “pay at the pump” do to reduce this cost?
Blaming the distribution system is a naive, headline-grabbing attempt to blame the messenger for bad news. The auto insurance distribution system could be more efficient (in fact, it is becoming more efficient on an almost daily basis), but forming a new government unit, and sticking hundreds of thousands of car owners with the lowest bidder, is not the answer.
