More than one in five Texas motorists lack the insurance that state law requires and the ratio is virtually unchanged from a year ago, a blow to the state’s 3-year-old program to sharply reduce the number of uninsured drivers on the road.It's no shock at all that no-insurance rates are going back up at the same time unemployment in Texas is rising. “I’m afraid insurance is down the list on necessities for many people,” Mark Hanna of the Insurance Council of Texas told the News. “A lot of people continue to drive around without insurance even though they know it’s against the law. But they’re willing to take their chances they won’t get caught.”
In addition, Dallas County continues to have the largest percentage of uninsured drivers among the state’s six largest counties, with 24.1 percent of cars and trucks lacking insurance coverage. That figure is down slightly from a year ago, state figures show.
Although the TexasSure vehicle insurance verification program showed good results the first two years after it began in 2008, reducing the number of uninsured vehicles from 24.3 percent to 21.6 percent in 2010, new statistics compiled in July show that progress has stagnated.
That means about 4.2 million drivers have no insurance, and law-abiding motorists shell out nearly $1 billion a year to protect themselves from damage done by drivers without insurance, state officials say.
You can only mandate that people buy insurance in the private market if they have the money in their pocket to do so. If and when they don't, requiring insurance coverage - whether health insurance at the national level or auto insurance at the state level - is inevitably a doomed strategy, which is why this blog has long advocated a pay-at-the-pump approach to minimum liability coverage.
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53 comments:
Grits, I often, but not always, disagree with your views. This is one of the exceptions. Your 'pay at the pump' insurance is an excellent idea.
From what I understand, Puerto Rico includes liability insurance in the cost of vehicle registration since most folks there won't (or can't afford to) buy insurance. I'm curious whether the rate of unregistered vehicles is nearly as high as uninsured vehicles.
Thank you for writing this post. Ever since people started saying the Obama health insurance mandate was unconstitutional, I've responded with the mandatory auto insurance laws. If one form of insurance is required by law, how can the other be unconstitutional? I thought I was the only person around who saw a correlation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Then don't drive or lock their a** up!
You would be more accurate in saying that the uninsured percentage correlates to the number of illegal aliens. THAT would make more sense.
Sandy, it is because mandated health insurance for 100% of US residents is mandated; auto insurance doesn't involve 100% of people, and car ownership and driving is voluntary, not mandatory. Big difference.
The number of uninsured may correlate to the number of illegal aliens, but it may also to the number of people in poverty. If pay at the pump won't fly then I think that if a person qualifies for food stamps then at the same time they should qualify for help paying for the state mandated car insurance.
This would help the greater society - not so many uninsured driving around. And also help the people getting the insurance to be able to drive legally to a JOB.
Yes, PrisonDoc, I understand the 100% issue but 100% of the people I know age 16 and older are drivers and it IS a government mandate that they buy auto insurance. Bet the percentage of drivers in your world is pretty close to 100%, too.
It's almost impossible to function effectively as an adult in Texas and elsewhere around our nation without driving. What a captive audience for the auto insurers, especially if other states adopt our 'buy insurance or go to jail' policy.
Have you ever filed a claim on your government-required auto insurance? I have. Each time, I had to hire lawyers to make the insurance pay the claim, even though I was not at fault either time. I had to buy the insurance AND I had to hire lawyers to make the insurance live up to its purpose.
The government makes me buy the insurance but it doesn't make the insurance company pay the claim. I have serious issues with that state of affairs. I see the same thing happening with health insurance coverage, too. And homeowners insurance and . . .
If we are going to be required by law to buy any product, including insurance on whatever it is that's covered, we need the laws to make it mandatory the insurance company pays claims. They don't. It isn't mandated by law yet but we are almost always required to buy legal services, too, to get the return on our insurance investment. Why not ensure our insurance pays off by making everyone buy a lawyer, too?
Insurance just hedges bets against potential disaster. The disaster in question probably won't ever happen but the premiums are a given. Insurance is a gamble, just like a trip to Vegas. It needs to be a voluntary consumer purchase, not a 'buy it or jail' commodity.
I do like Grits' idea of pay at the pump, though. Seems like that approach levels the playing field in cost and individual need. Don't want to pay for the insurance, don't pump the gas. Totally voluntary.
I'm just sick of being forced to buy one form of insurance while hearing that being forced to buy another form of it is unconstitutional. It's all the same.
Pay at the Pump will not work.
That's because it would represent an added tax on out-of-state residents, unless it were a nationwide program.
Making it a nationwide program would be resisted by rational folks, especially residents of Wisconsin and New Hampshire, which do not now require insurance at all.
Furthermore, it doesn't solve the fundamental "thin-skull" problem as it applies to car owners:
Why the hell should someone who drives a VW beetle pay the same as a Mercedes driver pays? The policy could only be just if the damages for a headlight, taillight, fender, total destruction, etc, were fixed.
In other words, if a Mercedes driver destroys your $500 VW beetle, you get $30,000 and if you destroy his $100,000 Mercedes, he gets $30,000.
Insurance is a religion subscribed to by the superstitious, risk-averse and statistically incompetent. Why don't we just pay for prayer at the pump?
Would somebody please tell me how you can renew your vehicle registration and inspection without current insurance.
Same with health care, very few doctors any more will take you without some kind of coverage.
The problem with our society is that, as a whole, we like making laws, but we don't beyond the end of our nose at the fall out. We've become a nation of people who like to legislate morality, but our follow through sucks.
jimbino, pay at the pump is no problem. It's paying for an insurance pool. Out-of-state drivers pay it for the privilege of driving on our Texas roads. Mercedes or Ford, makes no difference as they're paying into an insurance pool.
Is it fair? My definition of fair is a place where they judge chickens and hogs and kids ride merry-go-rounds and Ferris wheels.
Since the counties and towns rely more and more on fine income to make up for falling sales taxes revenues. Makes more sense for me to pay that 70 bucks a month for car insurance than to give our local police force 500+ for a no insurance ticket and other bullsh*t charges they tack on.
@ anon 5:01: "Then don't drive or lock their a** up!"
Where are you going to put 'em? our jails are already over crowded !!
Your posting is further reason to implement universal health care for all Americans.
Where are you going to put 'em? our jails are already over crowded !!
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Better yet, just seize the car. And don't release the car at auction unless the buyer produces proof of insurance. Don't even bother taking the driver to jail, just drop them (and any passengers) at the side of the road wherever they happen to be. An uninsured (or unregistered) vehicle can simply be contraband,
Soronel, the city of Lubbock actually does that. Not on the first offense, but on a subsequent offense. I think it's over the top for government involvement, but they do it. Sandy, even if 100% of the people we know are drivers, it is still a choice. It may be the only rational choice for most, but a choice nonetheless. Noteworthy: many of the uninsured are victims of the idiotic surcharges in the idiotic Driver Responsibility Act. No driver's license. Some people who don't have a license do have insurance, but I don't know how.
Also, Soronel, not that I'm for throwing people in jail for driving without insurance, but according to the Commission on Jail Standards popluation report, there are hundreds of empty beds in county jails around the state. Many counties overbuilt jails thinking they could rent a bunch of beds out and make a killing, but it didn't pan out. Lubbock County alone has over 300.
The constitutionality of the mandatory insurance requirement of the healthcare law is questioned by some because it mandates that everyone buy a product from a private company. Pertaining to the automobile law, one doesn't necessarily have to purchase liability insurance; they can post a surety bond, or a cash bond, at least in some states. I think that's the case in Texas. It makes more sense to buy the insurance, unless you are insanely wealthy, but it is an option for some. Just pointing out another example of apples to oranges comparisons.
RSO Wife. Doctors won't take cash????
Sure. Then we have another state insurance program that works as well as workman's comp. What a winner that is!
Don,
The comparison with the federal medical insurance law is Inapposite because the state does have that power, IMO. (To mandate that a general type of product be purchased, such as medical insurance with particular terms or auto insurance, I don't think the state could mandate that you buy the product from any particular company, that runs into negative commerce clause issues). I still wouldn't think it a good idea in the case of medical insurance as people don't choose to be alive, but I would believe it well within a state's powers (assuming that there aren't state constitutional level limitations at play).
I love that comment about car insurance being "voluntary". That was exactly the line we used when I was a nursing home inspector. ha After all, the home's choosing to accept people on Medicaid was "voluntary" and since they did take Medicaid, they had to take the federal/state inspection oversight that went along with it. Yet even private nursing home had to submit, because they "voluntarily" accepted various federal monies or their patients did. It was a ludicrous argument then and has not changed. Driving in Texas is most certainly NOT voluntary. Go try to get a job and tell them you get around by bus. Then get back on that bus and go home.
Still, I do not see the difference between government mandating we buy auto- and house- insurance, and buying health insurance. The public option was the safeguard for those unable to pay, but O was delusional and thought he could get bipartisan support by dropping it (and weakening the bill). We see how that turned out.
When are we going to take the profit incentive out of health care? There is no reason for it, it costs us huge bucks, drives up the total cost, and make insurance one of the most profitable businesses in the country. Just another perk for the very rich, at the expense of the rest of us, as usual.
I pay my bills I pay for things with cash. Can some one explain what my credit rating has to do with my insurance premium. To me that is not right young adults dont have credit and it hurts them very badly.
Don - according to Grits, the speculative 1500 bed Lubbock County Detenton Center is empty! Obviously, if there's 300 beds available, where are the remaining 1200?
Plato
Plato, the "empty" jail was the old one downtown that Lubbockites were promised would be filled with contract inmates so the new one would be "free." Instead y'all closed it and get county tax hikes every year. Enjoy!
Grits - we vote Republican out here each election by about 70-30%We have plenty of $ to pay for the jail, regardless of election promises. Don't worry about little ol' us, we'll get by somehow.
P
Plato: It is not empty, of course. I never read where Grits said it was empty. He is not an idiot; of course a county of 250,000+ people have some of them in jail. What are you talking about?
Never mind. The last two posts were delayed showing up on my screen. Scott answered.
Plato, I've watched for years how y'all "get by" on this topic: Your politicians con the voters by telling them a new jail will pay for itself, then raise taxes over and over when their promises don't pan out. I don't know if that's a function of voting Republican or not, but it's now the Lubbock jail debate played out.
Pay at the Pump is not insurance, since it removes the element of considering the risk presented by the individual driver. Drivers will pay according to the gas-mileage of their individual cars, which has little to do with risk pricing.
The incentive presented to drivers will be to drive worse in more efficient gold-plated cars.
The crazy socialists that thought up this system would probably advocate just charging a person a daily fee for living and then letting the gummint take care of any health problems that develop.
Hey! That sounds like Obamneycare!
jimbino, have you been smoking some funny tobacco?
I don't care for the Democrats and I sure as hell don't like those 'crazy socialists.' But crazy Republicans would deprive the poor and their children of medical care, privatize Social Security so it can be wiped out by a nose-diving stock market, and turn Medicare over to that generous and caring private insurance industry.
Jimbino, you don't seem to understand what insurance is. Pay at the pump spreads risk across a much broader pool and thus lowers prices for everyone.
What you're talking about is not insurance, but underwriting, which is something done by insurance companies but is not in any way shape or form a synonym for insurance.
Also, keep in mind we're only talkikng about the minimum liability that's mandated by the government. Remove the government mandate and there's no need for pay at the pump. Just let the market handle the problem. But then, I bet you don't really want that, either. It's not a "free market" if the government uses the criminal justice system to force you to participate.
It sounds good and tough to say lock them up or take away their cars, but, think it through. Say we have a single mom who is making minimum wage and by the time she pays for daycare, buys diapers and formula, and the rent, there's not enough left over for car insurance. Or the father who has a wife and couple of kids - neither he nor the wife has the education or skills to get more than a minimum wage job and by the time they pay for daycare, etc., there's not enough money for car insurance. Add to that the fact that they probably have bad credit so their insurance will cost more. So, we arrest the single mom, or the dad in the other family. What happens to the single mom's child? Hopefully there is some family that can take care of them but, they are likely poor too and will need some help from the government, food stamps, etc. Or, the child goes to foster care and that costs the taxpayers a pretty penny. Then mom gets out of jail but she has all these fins and court costs to pay, etc., and now she has no transportation so she's unemployeed.....so she needs help from the government. The same with the dad....mom can't feed the kids on her salary alone so she needs help from the goverment since Dad is now locked up and has no income.
So,sure, lock them up, take away their cars but its going to cost more money out of your pocket to deal with the consequences of that type of policy.
The more you make excuses for their poor conduct, the more they continue. Look at unemployment benefits-many like that pay check rather than look for a job. Its killing all of us.
Apparently you missed the point of my post. You're complaining about people getting unemployment but you advocate a course of action that will result in more dependence on the government and more money out of your pocket. Go ahead and do that if you want to pay more taxes. But, dont' then turn around and complain about the problem you created.
More and more in this country we seem to be trying to criminalize poverty. I guess, since its no longer fashionable to be racist, we have to find another category of people to be the enemy, to look down on, to fear. Maybe we can end poverty by locking all the poor people up. I wonder what that will cost.
Gritsforbreakfast said...
"Jimbino, you don't seem to understand what insurance is. Pay at the pump spreads risk across a much broader pool and thus lowers prices for everyone."
Anytime the state is involved in insurance, nothing is "cheaper." For years, my wife had TRS care teachers insurance managed by the state. I never took it, because even though my insurance through TRS care would have been "half price", that came out to be only 14 dollars/month cheaper than I paid for my own separate private policy with a better plan and better drug coverage.
I have an idea...
I recall hearing once (someone please correct me if this is wrong) that the biggest part of the "welfare dollar" goes to nursing homes (I assume that's through Medicaid). Look at how much money all those irresponsible seniors are costing us. "Its killing all of us," isn't it 9:17. How irresponible can you be? I mean these people knew they were going to get old, right? Shouldn't they have planned and put money aside so they wouldn't be a burden on the rest of us? Why should I have to pay for their irresponsible behavior? I think we need a law. If you get old and need to be in a nursing home but didn't set aside the money, you get arrested and go to prison. That should solve the problem, shouldn't it? We need to stop condoning this irresponsible behavior that is costing us so much money. We need to get tough on these slackers who didn't plan ahead to take care of themselves. They are just a drain on society.
(In case you don't get it, this is sarcasm).
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The auto or truck must be insured to get a registration sticker. It is in the system now whether you have insurance or not. Some people simply carry insurance long enough to get the car registered and maybe inspected and then drop the insurance. I just bought an old truck for farm use that is parked legally on my property which needs two tires before it can be inspected but it will have liability insurance before it goes to town.
10:34, you don't understand much about insurance, either. A pool with 100% of drivers is cheaper than a pool with 78$, and really the pool right now is much smaller than that because the insurance companies split them up separately via underwriting categories. One big pool that includes everybody by definition is cheaper because it eliminates completely the external costs from uninsured motorists.
Prison Doc said...
Sandy, it is because mandated health insurance for 100% of US residents is mandated; auto insurance doesn't involve 100% of people, and car ownership and driving is voluntary, not mandatory. Big difference.
How's that? Being born into this world is not voluntary.
EastTexan said...
Since the counties and towns rely more and more on fine income to make up for falling sales taxes revenues. Makes more sense for me to pay that 70 bucks a month for car insurance than to give our local police force 500+ for a no insurance ticket and other bullsh*t charges they tack on.
Sounds like you might know from personal experience. BTW, the state lege, not the the city or county, has set the fine amount for no insurance between $175-$350 for first offense, not $500.
Don said...
Soronel, the city of Lubbock actually does that. Not on the first offense, but on a subsequent offense. I think it's over the top for government involvement, but they do it.
The city of Lubbock has no authority under the Transportation Code to do such a thing for a second offense. Second offenses are B misdemeanors. Municipal courts have jurisdiction over C misdemeanors only.
Speaking of empty jails, the Littlefield Billy Clayton Center, which was sold on the auction block for $6 million, appears to maybe not be sold after all. The city manager says the finalization of the deal had been "postponed". He also said that he was "a little nervous" about it. I think that's politispeak for "it fell through". Don't know what happened, but I never believed anybody was gonna cut them a $6 million check for that thing. I think they were planning on the feds with illegal immigrants to populate it, and the feds are deporting more, and don't need the space. Don't know, though. But I bet Littlefield taxpayers are not off the hook yet!
As an LEO I deal with many citizens who complain about a variety of things. When I as them point blank what they feel is the best resolution to their grievance a majority of the time the response is to "arrest them". We're not talking about heinous offenses here. We're talking about people being rude, discourteous, etc. Seriously? Your neighbor told you to turn your music down three times already and you want me to lock him up for being mean to you? Go get a freaking life...and turn down the music, jerk.
In researching stupid things I ran across a fact that I've probably read many times before that I've consciously disregarded or plain overlooked. The U.S. incarcerates at least 4 million people at any one time. That is more than the number of people incarcerated in China who has four times the population of the U.S. Staggering, mind blowing number. Sure as anything an offense for being an asshole will probably come about causing this incarceration rate to rise.
Something has to give. Arresting for traffic violations? Never going to do it. Mandate arrest all you want.
Gritsforbreakfast said...
"10:34, you don't understand much about insurance, either."
I understand that no matter what the cost should be, it will be 50 percent higher because the state is managing it. That's why I gave the example of TRS care compared to my personal policy. Now, if we could somehow keep the states' fingers out of the pie..
6:01, I often wonder why the same distrust of government you express so seldom extends to police, prisons, the military, etc.. There's an ideological strain in this country, which you seem to agree with, that believes a) government can do nothing right and b) the solution to every problem is to make disliked behavior illegal and have the government enforce, prosecute, incarcerate, etc., to fix whatever problem has been identified. For the life of me I'll never understand that cognitive dissonance.
For my part, I think government is already failing miserably on this score using the justice system to enforce the Obama-style private mandate for auto insurance. Pay at the pump couldn't possibly screw things up any worse than the current dysfunctional setup, and at least then EVERYBODY would have minimum liability coverage, with no need to involve ticketing, surcharges, impounded cars, courts, jails, etc..
The cop who posted at 3:56 clearly understands that the criminal justice system can't solve every problem, but that concept seems to evade a large portion of the voting public.
No, I don't necessarily use the blanket approach to trusting cops or government. I rely on my own personal experience. I also don't trust criminals.
And, making disliked behavior a criminal offense depends upon the behavior. But, I do think that driving around without the ability to be responsible for your actions should be a criminal offense.
And, you said: "Pay at the pump couldn't possibly screw things up any worse than the current dysfunctional setup.." I disagree. It leaves the door wide open for abuse and inefficiency at the management level, which of course, would be the responsibility of the state.
I guess I don't understand the mentality behind the idea that if everyone "invisibly" pays at the pump, then everything will be OK. The government has been screwing us all for decades by operating the current taxation system in this same manner.
"There's an ideological strain in this country....
The ideological strain that motivates this blog is one that we don't want to examine.
As you wish, 6:20.
5:53, it's not that it's "invisible" that makes it better, it's that pay at the pump would automatically cover everyone (for state-required, minimum liability only).
The state and counties for years have tried criminal laws and ever-more draconian penalties, surcharges, towing vehicles, etc., wasting hundreds of millions on enforcement, jacking with average people's lives, and after all this time 22% or thereabouts still have no insurance. A number that big isn't explained by illegal immigrants or intentional scofflaws; it includes a lot of honest, average folks who just can't pay. Criminal penalties will never fix that.
By contrast, pay at the pump turns that 78% compliance rate to 100% without paying for extra cops, courts, jail space, bill collectors, etc.. And whatever you think about inefficient government, Medicare succesfully pays a lot of claims. And the simple math of it is, a comprehensive pool with no underwriting categories would lower costs across the board, even if it were inefficiently run.
If you don't think insurance should be required at all by government - as many people don't think Obamacare should force individuals to buy insurance - that's a different argument. But to me, if auto insurance is going to be a state mandate, pay at the pump is a smarter more efficient way to do it.
BTW, just as I pay with a debit card, or authorize a discount with my costco or sames membership, it would be easy enough for a database to link my debit card to my insurance. If I have insurance, I get a discount.
If I don't, I pay at the pump.
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