How close are we to the point at which people decide to just throw the demand-for-money letters they get from the car insurance mafia in the trash? I think we’re pretty close.
I know I am close.
The extortion I am told I must pay (hence extortion) to the car insurance mafia for to “cover” damage I haven’t caused has more than doubled over just the past three years. Since I have more than one vehicle (including several motorcycles) the total sum is not small. Concurrently, the cost of necessities (and “coverage” is hardly that) has also increased by at least 20-30 percent. My income has not increased commensurately, which means it is beginning to more than just pinch. At some point, it will pinch enough that one (necessities, such as food and paying the power bill) or the other (non-necessities, such as “coverage”) will have to go.
I do not think I am the only one who is weighing which will have to go.
I have always despised being forced to pay for anything I do not wish to buy. It is even more despicable when the forcing is done by the government for the benefit of for-profit, so-called “private” businesses.
Car insurance businesses are, of course, nothing of the sort. They are rent-seeking, mafia-like operations that rely on threats to coerce people into forking over. The threat being that they’ll tattle – to the government – that you didn’t buy what they’re selling. The government will then punish you with fines even more extortionate than the extortion meted out by the insurance mafia; also your “privilege” to drive on the supposedly public roads will be revoked. They are actually the government’s roads – even though it is not the government that paid for them. You and everyone else who pays motor fuels taxes (and other taxes) paid for them. Nevertheless, the government controls them and that is (effectively) the same thing as owning them.
The mafia-like coercion is why the cost of insurance is so outrageously high – and will go higher still. Does it require explaining why? If the government required everyone to buy coffee, what do you suppose a cup of coffee would cost? it works the same when the government says you will buy “x” – whatever “x” is. Health insurance is another obvious example. People were told – and some were dumb enough to buy it – that by forcing everyone to buy that “coverage,” the cost would go down rather than up.
Well, has it?
What incentive does a company that knows you have to buy what it is selling have to sell you a good deal? There is only one thing that serves to keep prices down and that is being able to say no to whatever they’re trying to sell. Ever been to a yard sale? The sign says $50 for that old mower. You offer the guy $25. He can take it – or you can leave it. Odds are good he’ll take the $25 and you’ll have gotten yourself a good deal on an old mower. This is basic economic interplay; the essence of what in the Before Time was known as the free market. As in, people were free to offer a product or service for what they thought it was worth and people were free to decide whether they thought the price was worth it. Imagine that.
Can’t have that.
Forcing people to buy insurance – which was once a thing people were free to buy and that’s why it was affordable, once – became a thing beginning in the ’80s, which is right around the time everything began to seriously sour in this country. The forcing was based on the concept of presuming a harm will arise and using that as a justification to (ostensibly) prevent the harm from arising. The act of driving a car entails the possibility of causing harm to others; for that reason, everyone who drives must buy insurance to “cover” these harms, the argument went – even if the harms never actually happen. The secondary claim was that by requiring people to buy insurance as a condition of being allowed to drive on the government’s roads, there would be much less harm arising from people who actually did cause it not being able to pay for it.
This some interesting questions.
Is it right – morally – to make someone pay when he hasn’t caused harm? It seems on the face of it to be a pretty immoral idea. Not just as such but also because of the precedent it sets. If it is morally ok to make someone buy car insurance because he might cause harm then logically, it follows it is morally ok to make anyone who owns a gun buy insurance, on the same basis. It’s not even a stretch to say the same about anything that might cause harm to others, such as owning a large breed dog or having teenagers. The point here is that once the precedent is set, what is to keep it from being applied more generally? I mean, beyond whatever the current Overton Window says is acceptable, right now.
What about tomorrow?
It’s a shame more people don’t think about precedents – and principles.
As far as the secondary claim – that the requirement to buy insurance will reduce the harm caused by those who cause harm but cannot or will not pay for it – that’s been obviated by “no fault” laws that make fault an irrelevance. It is of a piece with wearing a mask – if it works. What does it matter whether someone else ears one? In addition, must-buy-insurance laws are like no-guns-allowed laws in that both are meaningless to the kinds of people who cause harm and don’t care what “the law” says.
Here is a question that’s rarely asked – as The Chimp says – but maybe ought to be answered: Why should it be a punishable offense to refuse to hand over money to a for-profit mafia? Is it not offensive to be coerced into handing over money to a for-profit mafia? Is the worry that you might cause harm something that legitimately (morally) imposes an obligation on you to hand over money? Naturally, there are people who insist it does. Such people bear a great responsibility for fucking up this country. They are the same people who support the Flocking of this country.
Each of us as individuals are responsible for what we do. Nor for what others worry we might do.
I tire of being extorted by for profit mafias that grow fat like ticks on the blood they suck from ordinary people like me who only ask to be left alone (and that includes leaving our wallets alone) so long as we haven’t harmed anyone. It’s a principle that deserves to be re-asserted.
A rebooted precedent that needs to be set.
But – some will say – you can’t drive without coverage! They’ll get you! Can they get all of us? How about a lot of us? Imagine if enough of us had outright refused to wear a mask or play any variation of Sickness Kabuki. It would have been damned hard for them to keep the Sickness Kabuki going.
It would be damned hard for them to do much about it if enough of us just threw the insurance mafia’s extortion notes in the trash, too.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is: EPautos 721 Hummingbird Lane SE Copper Hill, VA 24079
And if we all stop breathing air, they’ll stop spraying us like cockroaches, every weekday and twice on weekends.
Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait for it… wait… a little more…
They won’t.
How’s that homeowners policy workin’ out for ‘ya?
https://weissratings.com/en/weiss-news/14-large-u-s-insurers-closed-nearly-half-of-homeowner-claims-with-no-payment-in-2024
Disgusting.
Clovers and their pointless quest for peace & safety uber alles world.
The replacements rarely have insurance.
Have you tried contacting your state representative? You raise an interesting point:
Car insurance can cover:
(1) Property to compensate the owner/lender in case of damage.
(2) Insure the driver in case harms another vehicle(s)/person(s)/property.
It seems there should be some type of separate umbrella policy for (2) that has nothing to do with how many vehicles you own (you could explain you are 1 driver with 10 vehicles so paying this same charge 10 times), based on the risk of the driver and should only have to pay once regardless of how many vehicles. It would be a charge for each driver (?) on the policy. You could have a drivers license and drive cars but you pay no insurance because you don’t personally own a vehicle (?) explain how this way they could charge those people too. Like one charge would be connected to property (car/motorcycle registration) which you could choose to have or not and other charge connected to the drivers license (this would get them to have to separate our ID vs drivers license).
Yeah, there is such a thing. Typically called umbrella liability. Depends on your state, but mine requires you to have at least minimum liability the vehicle involved in the incident before your umbrella kicks in. If it wasn’t an active policy, the umbrella does not apply.
Happens to me because I have an Audi that is a crappy winter car, so I just call the agent and switch the policy from the summer car to the winter car as appropriate. But that’s allowed only twice a year. I’d have to insure at least half the vehicles to do the policy swaps.
Virginia probably has different rules. Who knows, umbrella might be all you need. If so I’m surprised there are (apparently) no youtubes about it. But never hurts to check with your agent. (Who has a vested interest in telling you, “Not in Virginia.” So maybe you have to find a qualified attorney, too.)
Have you actually tried contacting a representative? I got a form letter response to a carefully, politely written email, explaining how insurance mandates protect me and everyone around me.
They have a pre-canned answer for this.
Agreed, Eric.
The problem here is the same one that destroyed the medical system. You should insure only to cover your losses that you want covered. Someone smashes into your car? Fine, your insurance pays you, up to whatever limit you wanted. No collision policy, no money. Pretty similar to how collision, un/underinsured, etc., are done. How State Farm or Geico or Guido and Sons recovers the money from the slob who crashed into you is up to them to work out.
Liability would then likely be only an umbrella liability policy. If you smashed into someone’s house and somehow the house was “totalled”, and Guido and Sons come to pay your kneecaps a visit, you just hand them your agent’s card and all is well.
Ha! I renewed my *liability only* coverage on my 00 Dyna with Flo for $160 or so. OVER HALF THAT was *uninsured motorist* coverage!!! I could almost understand an uninsured motorist proviso for collision coverage, but with only liability? Can someone explain this? Thx
Quite the Catch-22 isn’t it tom,
Here in Taxachusetts there are mandatory minimum requirements for liability and property damage coverage, plus also “uninsured driver coverage”. So if insurance is mandatory for everyone why do I need coverage for someone who is “uninsured”? Just another cash extraction from the serfs.
I wish. Illinois has similar rules, but when someone T-boned my daughter’s car, he showed an insurance card that turned out to be fake. After spending about 6 months screwing around, and 3 months with an attorney on the case, the insurer finally revealed that there was no such policy. I sent a copy of the letter to my agent, and the next morning money the was in my account.
The guy was absolutely broke. Zero assets, not even a replacement car, zero income, living on someone else’s couch. The state wasn’t going to do anything, so without UU, I’d have had to eat the loss.
Hey Eric
I have said this before but I will say it one more time.
There is a solution for your ‘Problem’ but I will not show it on a public forum. If I can contact you without worrying about someone/something accessing our conversation, I will. With the lack of privacy and surveillance in the US however, I don’t know how I would do this – short of speaking with you face to face.
By the way, the name and E-mail I have listed is not mine. Having that shit-hole State of Nevada steal my car under the premise of Drugs (I have never had an alcoholic drink, tried a cigarette or even use novocaine when I go to the dentist), I am justifiably paranoid.
Hi Tyce,
I’m very interested; maybe shoot me an email? ([email protected]) Between us, I promise.
“that’s been obviated by “no fault” laws that make fault an irrelevance.” (this started with divorce courts, just FYI).
versus
“Each of us as individuals are responsible for what we do. Nor for what others worry we might do.”
Which way of thinking dominates the world today?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/yinyang
The insurance mafia debate masks the deeper struggle. It’s only a symptom.
Not to pry, cobble, but is your divorce recent?
No.
Could not agree more Eric, I have had more than enough of the insurance mob in all of their evil incarnations.
Thanks, El Guapo – and amen!
I’m debating right now whether to throw the “offer” from the insurance mafia for “covering” my old TA in the trash because I need a new weed whacker and that’s worth much more to me than just throwing away a couple hundred bucks.
It’s not as if the psychopaths in charge really give a damn whether you have insurance or not. They’re just concerned about collecting every dime from you that’s possible. Even if you don’t have any.
Once I had a job that I really, really hated. I hated it so much that when I wasn’t there, I spent every other minute dreading going back. It was a dark cloud over my life, but I had to pay bills and think about my career. Every day, from the moment I left home until I left the job, I hated it. And then one morning, instead of walking to work from the subway, I just kept right on walking.
Instead of going to work explored Madison and Park Avenue and walked the length of central park. I never went back. The brief period of uncertainty that followed was nothing compared to going to that hellish job.
My next job began the second best period of my life. CA was the perfect fit for me. Loved it. All everybody has to do, is walk away. They can’t foreclose on every house. The owners of the mortgages don’t even know the homes exist and aren’t even in America, and they are not going to offer the soldiers or law enforcement an alternative to owning nothing and being happy.
It absolutely could all end with a whimper, with it snapping, and everyone walking away. I can see people stopping paying car insurance, car payments, mortgage payments, electric (going back to candles and fireplaces and wood stoves), property taxes, and ignoring city ordinances by planting vegetables and keeping chicken and running unlicensed businesses.
And I can see the Rothschild/secretive-types who own Vanguard and the world strategically deciding to throw all politicians under the bus with admissions about covid at that point, allowing 1870s-level freedom to sprout up again, so they can start the game all over. They can easily pin the whole Great Reset on national governments and say all they ever wanted to do is provide money for good ideas and entrepreneurs, but governments became obsessed with control after destroying economies through corruption.
What an optimistic take Kmose. I like it. Not sure how likely it is, but, if enough people become fed up to the gills it becomes conceivable. I also experienced that kind of terrifying freedom when I first moved to Vegas. No job, no where to live, just tired of the life I’d been leading and ready for a change. It usually works itself out pretty well if you’re determined.
The worst part of it is, the people who actually cause real harm, real damages, and real losses are untouchable. Many don’t even have citizenship or a fixed address. Many are paid under the table. Many don’t have insurance of any kind—and no assets to go after. They deal in cash and money orders. You can arrest them and put them in jail, but that’s all you can do.
It’s people who have something to lose who have to worry about all this—But what happens when those same people have nothing left to lose?
Exactly, Bryce –
That’s precisely what enrages me. I am a responsible man. I pay my bills. What reason have I given to suspect I would not pay for damages I cause? The answer is – none. Yet I am mulcted relentlessly by these state-connected mafias. It is intolerable. I am at the point of no longer being willing to tolerate it.
And to the bed wetters: If I cause damage, then I’ll pay. Take my house and my TA if need be, to “cover” your damages. But until I cause damage, fuck off.
Agreed. And if that’s still not enough to cover the damages, including exhausting your personal umbrella liability coverage, you can always sign an indentured servitude contract. Which you likely will if the injured party’s only alternative is selling the remaining loss to the Gambinos for pennies on the dollar and letting them go after the money.
This is not as bad as one might think, though. The guy with the Bugatti Chiron would have to pay an arm and a leg for full replacement coverage, because the insurer knows few people have that kind of dosh, so will have to settle for pennies on the dollar.
To be clear, Steve –
I am fine with my house and TA and everything else I have being put on the block to pay for damages I cause . . . if I cause them. If I do not or cannot pay for them out of pocket. But otherwise? They can all fuck off. Yes, I’m angry. I’m tired of being made to pay for damages I have not caused because some bed wetter worries I might. Well, I might just punch a bed wetter in the face, too. I’m a fairly big guy. Maybe I ought to be forced to buy Angry Big Guy “coverage” also, because you never know….
Mind, I’m not some teenage kid who thinks too highly of himself. I’m a grown man who can point to decades of not causing harm to anyone. At what point does that count more than some bed wetter’s “concern”?
If the state just backs out of the whole situation, I have no quarrel with you. (Actually, I have no quarrel with you anyway.) But that means no free rides. If you do cause more damage than all your assets can reimburse, you still owe money. How do you intend to make full restitution?
FWIW, I agree it’s a racket. I just don’t see a way to resolve it as you like that doesn’t involve Vinnie and Guido or slave auctions. An incentive to be financially responsible is fine. But if it is not sufficiently incentivizing, more drastic measures are called for. The victim should be made whole, not the only guy left holding the bag.
Hi Bryce.
Is it time to bring back debtors prisons or bring back “bonded servitude”? I suspect the average broke individual/ no assets that discovers that their lack of forethought results in them picking lettuce for years to pay off the judgement because they have no skills that would pay more. The freehold book series covered this a little.
Hi Landru,
This misses the point. I am tired of this assumption of harm crap. If someone causes harm, then the issue of holding them accountable comes up. Not before.
If a man is subject to being prosecuted because he might cause harm – in the vaguest, most generic way – then that man is something less than a slave, who at least isn’t lectured about the harms he might cause.
I grasp the “assumption of harm” lie but as laws are written by politicians who are either lawyers or involved with them we’re screwed.
My comment was based on an alternative system wherein if you caused a loss and you were not insured you would make good on the claim even if you were forced into servitude.
Right. There has to be something like implied consent to involuntary servitude or something. Otherwise, most people would be unable to pay, and the victim gets screwed.
It’s not that I don’t agree with Eric, but that somehow the victim must be made whole. And with Eric’s idea, UU coverage would be prohibitively expensive, because most people would just ride bareback.
What’s the hive mind view (economic, punitive or otherwise) on this presumption of innocence if someone is killed by the harm? It’s a legitimate question, not meant as flippant. I think the insurance racket needs to be shit canned along with the whole “approved” vehicle-annual registration-drive license ecosystem. The failure I come to in thinking is that dropping all things nanny ultimately relies on the world being populated by responsible adults who aren’t liars and cheats. That’s as universally likely as the Sun rising in the west. So how do you make someone whole who’s dead?
Hi Monte,
It’s a good question. The answer is – you can’t make them whole. But it’s the same as regards murder, isn’t it? I mean, we can’t make the victim of a murder whole (obviously) or their family. But we don’t treat everyone as if they had or were going to commit a murder. We deal with offenders on a case-by-case basis.
I think the fallacy that mandatory insurance is based on is that such things can be prevented. Life is risky. The thing – the question – then becomes how much risk is acceptable? My view is that it is necessary to accept that some people will cause harm and that it is dangerous to buy into the idea of assuming everyone will cause harm and treating them as if they had or will – because they might.
It is just to expect people to be responsible and to require accountability when they are not. It is unjust to treat people who are responsible as presumptively irresponsible.
No to debtors prisons and bonded servitude as that gives MORE power to state and is the last thing anyone trying to escape this nightmare needs. There are lot of arguments that come out of (mostly) the “right” and the whole “bring back debtors prisons” I would count among the WORST.
What is needed is a functioning court system, which does what a court system should really exist to do and that is provide for resolution of disputes, with restitution for actual harm done as needed.
OK, but what do you do in the quite common cases where the other guy has no assets at all, let alone attachable assets? Do you have to eat the $1mil hospital bill, the $4mil prosthetics bill and the $1/2mil therapy?
The thing is, Steve, that scenario hasn’t been eliminated by forcing responsible people to buy “coverage.” There are millions of people driving without insurance right now and most of them are judgment proof because they have no assets to speak of. In other words, mandatory insurance is like gun control. It serves chiefly to hassle and punish the people who aren’t the problem.
People like me. I don’t cause harm to anyone. So I think I ought to be left the Hell alone. That some bed wetters are “concerned” I might cause them harm isn’t a legitimate reason to extract money from my hide.
True. But what the state has done is make it something the market cannot resolve. It’s a government failure, but everyone will be told it’s a market failure, and we will be worse off.
I’d love to see the numbers work, but I can’t see it. I just see good people getting absolutely screwed because now the number of drivers who can’t pay restitution goes through the roof. It’s an irreconcilable moral hazard. (At least I can’t see a way of reconciling it.) Only those with sufficient attachable assets will carry any insurance.
Don’t you have universal healthcare coverage in Israel (Kupat Holim), Zio-Steve? 🙂
I learn so much about Israel from you, um, what’s the jewish phrase for “my friend”.
The globalists motto of “You Will Own Nothing & Be Happy” comes to mind. Except that many are not. Insurance on your paid-for-vehicle, property tax on your paid-for house and property. Yeah, something has to give, ’cause contrary to what Trump is touting, the economy is not great for everyone. Shrinkflation at the grocery store anyone? Oh yeah, do you still have to have your stupid, inspection sticker even for your Trans AM, Eric? Sounds like just one more way to stick it you long after one has had enough.
Hi Shadow,
Here is what scares me…I would not be surprised if the banks started going after the difference in financed assets in the next downturn. It would be the icing on their cake of “own nothing”.
An example, a couple buys a home for $600k. They put 10% down and make all payments timely. As we all know loans, especially mortgages, are top heavy on interest at the beginning so very little is being paid toward principal. Let’s say two years end the couple owes $525k on the mortgage. The housing market has dropped considerably and the home is now valued at $485k. The bank wants the difference of $40k immediately or will foreclose on the property. The couple doesn’t have it.
This is the stuff that keeps me up at night.
Except that banks are in the business of lending money, not managing real estate.
Private equity holders, on the other hand…
Hi Adi,
The banks were quick to pull the credit lines during the Great Recession. I remember sitting with a $20K credit line at Chase and then the letters start showing up….your credit line has been decreased to $12K. Then SunTrust was next, then Citibank, etc. I was in business for five years at that time, hubby was in business for one year. We had no way to buy parts/supplies, pay vendors, the banks literally cut us off at the knees. I was playing musical credit cards at one point.
I was an external accountant for a few real estate brokerage houses in 2009-2011. They handled REOs for BOA. I handled the paperwork for the reimbursements. Most of the time the RE agents would get completely screwed over by the banks. They RE agent had to pay for the repairs and then try to get reimbursed by the bank. The hoops that had to be jumped through to try to get paid. Did the banks lose money? Yes, on paper, but the Fed gave most of them a sizable chunk under Section 13(3), which was not passed down to the lendees.
I don’t put anything past them.
“I remember sitting with a $20K credit line at Chase and then the letters start showing up….your credit line has been decreased to $12K.”
Sounds like a second lienholder HELOC. If you can live within your means, you should always refi into a first lienholder HELOC. Your bank will welcome you with open arms (though you might have to explain it a time or two) because then they get what used to be your mortgage interest. Much better deal for them than the balances you probably carry.
And it’s not even that much of a hurdle. Most banks will take a 90% 1st HELOC without thinking twice. At the moment, there are places willing to take 125%.
It’s nothing I’d do if I were the kind living paycheck to paycheck, but if you aren’t the difference is huge. Paying off your property (if that’s what you want to do) is often in the 6-10 year range without changing your lifestyle.
“you should always refi into a first lienholder HELOC”
Correction. Usually. If you are paying much lower rates than HELOCs, probably not. You have to work the numbers to see your break-even.
Hi Steve,
I am a stickler for a paid off house. I don’t tie anything onto it other than a first mortgage, which my husband and I paid off several years ago. We purchased our first house at 23 and played the refi game dropping the interest rate and the years of the loan when it was advantageous to do so.
The shop does have a mortgage on it, but my goal is to pay that off in the next 5 years before the balloon payment is due; otherwise the bank has me over a barrel especially if the housing sector falters. We did put down a large down payment, but if commercial and residential real estate drops 50% (I like to prepare for the worst) then they will call the note in.
Of course, that’s of the greatest value to someone who likes to work deals. If a great opportunity arrives, you have up to your home’s current “cash balance” that you can just write a check on. A tactic not for the timid, to be sure.
Hi Steve,
No these weren’t HELOCs, just a combo of personal and business credit cards. I know plenty of people that did have HELOCs that they pulled though.
There is no way I am putting my business on my house. That is a no go for me.
I had to argue that with the bank when we purchased the current office/shop this year. They wanted everything. Annual financials for all of the businesses, personal financials and tax returns, personal guarantees, etc. My husband wasn’t too happy when I told the bank to shove their loan commitment letter, but the bank gave us what we wanted and we ended up with much better terms.
There is no way I am putting my business on my house. That is a no go for me.
Right. Never do that. Don’t pierce the LLC shield. If for some reason you want to “lend” home equity to your main business, always, always, always do it through a pass-through. One that ideally has no other assets than the “loan” to your main biz.
I was just speaking of arbitrage opportunities as they appear. And they are all over the place.
This is the threat. Always has been, always will be. There are circumstances where notes can be called in, especially after they have been sold. And almost all mortgages have been sold, if only to be bundled into some MBS or R-REIT or something. (Except for a small window somewhere around 2010 for some people, who were mostly conned into signing a Refi that remedied the doc issue.)
The golden handcuffs mean you can’t afford to move somewhere with more opportunity. You settle. Most people buy homes way too early. Including me, and I was in my mid 30s. Had 2008 happened shortly after I bought, I’d have been cooked. No way to sell, because I’d have to cut a check for the difference, no way to walk away, because with the hit on credit rating, I couldn’t even rent. I’d have settled. Retired a broke, mostly broken, sad man. It wasn’t until years later that I realized how big a risk I had taken.
You’re not the first to wonder in what order it may be done – nationalizing retirements, bail-in savings and checking, calling in the loans.
The calling in loans part is what you’re suggesting. Very, very few people have the assets to cover their loans even in good times. Most people are juggling paper to look wealthy.
So how do you flush out the people who own their homes or could stand up financially to calling in the loans? Freeze or outright steal their assets first. Make it impossible to get your wealth liquid, even with ridiculous IRA penalties. Having all the banks close for a holiday when you crash the economy and request loan to be paid off means even those who are nominally liquid can’t get at their savings.
Keep the banks closed long enough then even if you own a home but can’t make the tax payment you pull them into legal default.
Hard to say if the system collapses to the point that it doesn’t matter, your home is literally your castle, or the system sputters through fits of things appearing organized first. In other words, does the system remain intact enough for the cops come knocking trying to enforce title chain and tax delinquency or not?
Remembering that all those cops, firemen, soldiers are paid from harvesting taxpayers so they have very invested skin in the game to keep the money flowing. They’ll have all the bureaucrats and school districts pushing them.
And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. – Milton Friedman
It’s not just the cost of insurance. As people file claims, the cost of the parts and labor for the repair will go up as well. You’re paying for the insurance, you should get something back. So why not file a claim? And if you’re 6 years into that 7 year loan you’ll be required to carry comprehensive all that time, even more incentive to file a claim (because up until the title is in your hands you don’t own the vehicle).
Once the insurance company gets involved, the shop will work harder to maximize the repair quote. And maybe add additional costs to cover the labor needed to prepare the quote, etc. The insurance company will come back with a standard “negotiated” rate, which is usually a “take it or leave it” amount. So maybe the first few times the shop will provide a fair quote and get screwed by the insurance “negotiator.” So they either pass or they take the offer, but next time make sure they add on the discount to fair price margin. Pretty soon the “fair market rate” goes up.
The parts suppliers, wholesalers, manufacturers, they’re all playing the same game. Raise costs to make the insurance adjuster happy and get more money than if you were paying out of pocket. Pretty soon you see brittle plastic parts replacing malleable metal. Entire “assemblies” that used to be individual parts that require hours of labor and odd tools just to remove the damaged part. Complicated engineered unibody panels instead of simple box section framing.
It’s as if the automotive insurance racket looked over at the medical insurance racket and said “Why didn’t we think of that?”
>It’s as if the automotive insurance racket looked over at the medical insurance racket and said “Why didn’t we think of that?”
You got it. 🙁
‘”They’ll get you!” Can they get all of us?’ — eric
During the covid madness of 2020-2021 came the high tide of driving vehicles with fake temporary plates. No insurance, no registration, but drive anyway. This artful dodge was highly popular in Washington DC and many other US cities with a large precariat.
Crackdowns followed, new ‘laws’ were passed, and the phenomenon is receding. Over time, it’s an endless cat-and-mouse game, as the control technology changes. Flock plays a role. Today the New York Slimes, from the car-unfriendly city of NYC, features not one but two articles about it:
Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don’t.
In Texas, there’s one thing liberals and conservatives agree on: they don’t want cameras trained on their cars.
Why Are So Many People Upset About Flock Cameras?
As Eric’s readers know, inevitably the Lügenpresse is the penultimate entity to catch on to an emerging social trend. (Clowngress, of course, makes up the caboose of the terminally clueless. Do you think Mitch McClownell is reading these headlines?) So something is about to shift.
Two minutes of hate for Flock!
I’m watching the same dynamic play out in a cottage industry of making synthetic kratom derivatives such as 7OH and more recently, MGM-15. These substances offer pain relief similar to a mild opiate, although they aren’t opiates.
Several states banned them, but most have not. Suddenly — and despite or because of Lügenpresse reports this spring that some of Trump’s mafia have their dirty paws in the kratom industry — the DEA decided to place these substances in Schedule 1, the worst of the worst. You know, like the devil weed ‘marijuana’ [sic], which remained in Schedule 1 for decades to facilitate hippie bashing and a paranoid climate of fear among casual users.
With Schedule 1 listing pending, one vendor conducted a grand closeout sale during July to unload their stock. Last week, a fresh email advised that they will continue selling until the dreaded notice is actually published in the Federal Register, shutting them down overnight.
We already know what will happen next: wily gray-market chemists will buckle down to work, developing new and more potent synthetics to evade the ban. And so it goes.
And here’s how Govco plays its side of the cat-and-mouse game:
“While everyone was focused on Fauci, MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) was hit with two MAJOR betrayals,” declared Nicholas Hulscher, epidemiologist and administrator at the McCullough Foundation.
‘Dr. ‘Erica Schwartz’ was confirmed on Wednesday as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) by the Senate.
“She recently called mRNA injections ‘safe and effective.’ She’s also responsible for mandating flu shots, smallpox shots, and anthrax shots on U.S. forces while she was working in the military,” noted Hulscher. “She’s called the ‘Queen of Vaccine Mandates,’ and now she’s in charge of the CDC.”
Just hours later, “the FDA approved Moderna’s new mRNA flu injection despite 75% of participants suffering adverse reactions,” said Hulscher. In the testing that led up to the drug’s approval, the mRNA group experienced 4 times more severe systemic reactions compared to the traditional flu shot groups, he explained. “So it was way more dangerous.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/08/no_author/fda-approves-modernas-dangerous-mrna-flu-shot-queen-of-vaccine-mandates-new-cdc-head/
The fix is in. Bill Gates’s plan to shave global population to half a billion trundles on.
“Two minutes of hate for Flock!”
What? No two minutes of hate for Axon, Zio-Jim? 😉
Zio-Steve projecting again.
No, just getting in before you or AJC.
The collapse of the Empire will be led by the F.I.R.E. (finance/insurance/real estate) econ-O’me. The shuffling of all the Monopoly money will either come crashing down or go up in flames. Either way, we need to be planning for what comes next because this sh!t can’t go on forever.
Also, you mention buying a lawn mower. Question, how much revenue does GovCo collect from people buying gas for their lawn equipment? I imagine it’s not an insignificant amount else they’d offer “off road” gasoline.
The farm lobby was behind making less-taxed “off-road diesel” available. Big Gov just luvvvvvs its farmers. Which is why they’re disappearing, decade after decade, as they get ‘loved’ to death.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a lobby. 🙁
“It’s fer yer own gooood.”, Cap’n
“I wish you’d stop bein’ so good to me, Cap’n.” – Lucas Jackson
I suspect that if you have an outstanding note on your home or car that the lender will repo the item in question for lack of insurance.
As for Eric’s vehicles, Hagerty offers collector car and bike insurance that might work depending on how you use them.
I also suspect that those Flock cameras can easily be programmed to identify uninsured vehicles.
Hi Landru,
I have collector car “coverage” – and have had it for decades. The bastards keep raising the cost. It was for a long time a reasonable pittance. It is no longer a pittance and so no longer reasonable. What are the chances I will ever wreck the TA? More finely, ever harm anyone else or their property with it? Essentially nil. I take it out maybe once a week and drive a five or so mile loop on the back roads near my place. I never take it on the highway or to populated areas. I am a rational, reasonable man. I am not an irresponsible or reckless one. I judge the worth of “coverage” to be not worth it. I am sick of being forced to pay it.
Fundamentally, I am sick of being made to pay on account of what some pants-wetting ninnies worry I might do. Or because some other people – over whom I have no control – have done.
I hope my point of view spreads.
Yeah, Hagerty is getting expensive.
Hi Landru –
Yep. It’s an inevitable function of them being able to force us to buy what they’re selling. If we could legally say No thanks, I’m not paying that – when they arbitrarily double the cost of what they’re selling, then they’d have no choice (assuming they want to stay in business) but to lower their prices.
What’s not helping is how badly people drive nowadays. For example in the burbs yesterday I saw someone change lanes multiple times just before a red light; no signals and apparently no clue where they were. A person that forgot they were supposed to go when the light turned green and a person who came so close to my bumper that if I tapped my brakes they would have performed a perfect PIT maneuver (I was doing the speed limit, lots of wildlife in the area and on a curving road at night).
Once upon a time this would have been uncommon but this happened in less than 15 minutes of driving.
Totally true, Landru –
But (again) fuck those people. I am not those people. I have had it with being lumped in with those people. Let those people bear the costs for the harm they cause and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
Yeah. I’m angry today.
I get it Eric but until a solution is found that covers drivers/ pedestrians/ cyclists along with a speedy court system that will enforce payment for losses due to negligence or actions (bonded servitude anyone?) we’re pretty screwed at this point.
For that matter it’s amazing the biggest skyscrapers now house insurance companies and not companies that build things.