BIG WRECK: Massachusetts has the highest accident rate in the country, but higher insurance rates aren't the answer
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Here is what you need to know if you’re trying to make sense of the conflicting and often confusing radio and TV advertisements about auto insurance that are being broadcast around the clock: Governor Mitt Romney’s plan to reform the way auto insurance works in Massachusetts is bad news for consumers. It would make a less-than-perfect system even worse.Massachusetts is the only state in the nation that sets auto-insurance rates. It’s a system heavy with government intervention. And it’s an easy rhetorical target. It does, however, save many drivers — especially young city dwellers — from getting hit with punishingly high rates.
Most of the big, national insurance companies hate it. As a result, they refuse to offer policies here. A bunch of the biggest — including Liberty Mutual, MetLife, and Allmerica — want to change the way we handle car insurance in the Bay State. They’ve banded together and formed a “grassroots coalition” they call Fairness for Good Drivers.
Last year, this industry group backed Romney’s plan to allow insurers to set their own rates, so long as those rates don’t increase by more than 15 percent per year. The bill died, so this group is now promoting a new bill — soon to be introduced — that is expected to be much the same, with a few minor tweaks, including a phase-in over three to six years.
Needless to say, these advocates of so-called reform are not emphasizing the outrageously high and inflationary 15 percent annual rate hikes in their ads. Instead, they claim that under the current system, “Good drivers pay more for auto insurance so bad drivers can pay less.”
That’s a gross oversimplification.
It’s true that older suburban drivers currently pay a little more than they take out in claims, while younger city drivers pay less than they prompt in claims.
That’s not because of their driving ability, however; it’s because everyone’s more likely to be in an accident when they first learn to drive, and when they drive on crowded city streets.
Supporting the status quo are ads sponsored by a small group of local insurance companies that don’t want big national insurers getting a piece of the lucrative local business. Leading the charge is Commerce Insurance Company, of Webster, which last year earned nearly a quarter-billion dollars in profits. Putting local insurers even further behind the PR eight ball, the big insurers have a snappy name, while the local group has a real clunker: Massachusetts Coalition for Affordable Auto Insurance for All.
The debate over the airwaves is being carried to ridiculous lengths. The Coalition for Affordable Auto Insurance is warning Bay State residents not to make the same mistake New Jersey made. Now the fact of the matter is that New Jersey’s plan isn’t all that bad. But rather than defend it, Fairness for Good Drivers asks why anyone in their right mind would listen to people from New Jersey.
This may be good for a cheap laugh, but it doesn’t come to grips with the real reason why rates are so high here in Massachusetts.
Insurance rates in Massachusetts are high because we have the highest accident rate in the nation.
There are real ways to reduce that figure, including increasing seat-belt use, reducing drunk driving, improving roads, re-engineering intersections, and — God forbid — encouraging use of public transportation rather than jacking up fares. The legislature’s current plan to raise the minimum driving age won’t alter the fact that, at some point, everybody must go through a “new driver” learning curve. More helpful would be expanding services like The Ride that help the elderly get around without taking the wheel.
If the state does reduce accidents, our current auto-insurance system will do a much better job of passing along those savings to customers. How do we know? Because we just saw it happen.
A decline in the number of accidents, along with a drop in the cost of repairs, led to a $237 million savings for the insurance companies a year ago, thanks to lower claim payouts.
To reflect the lower costs, Romney’s commissioner of insurance dropped the rates by 8.7 percent this year. Those rates probably should have been lowered even more: Attorney General Tom Reilly, who has the authority to challenge the administration’s rates, calculated that the cut should have been at 18 percent.
The auto-insurance industry, by contrast, recommended a rate reduction of 0.1 percent. No wonder nobody trusts insurance companies.
The current system is less than perfect. There is no doubt about that. Reilly, now running for governor, has spoken in the past about ways it could be fixed, such as by spreading the expense incurred from some of the highest-risk customers more evenly among insurers. He should have stood up for customers and challenged Romney’s rate change. Why Reilly let Romney get away with trying to murder Massachusetts drivers with punishing rates is a question his Democratic challengers, Chris Gabrieli and Deval Patrick, should hit him over the head with. Reilly still has a chance to tackle Romney. And Gabrieli and Patrick should lay out their owns plans.
That would make for a much more enlightening debate than the sorry one the insurance companies are now inflicting on us.
