A View From The Press Box

One of the occupational hazards of being a journalist who happens to cover the insurance industry is you start becoming a risk manager yourself. You spot hazards no one else pays attention to. You see exposures lurking everywhere. And you instinctively take steps to limit any risks you identify, as well as make sure you have the proper loss control and coverage programs in place should the worst-case scenario occur. Today, I share with you a recent column by Senior Editor Caroline McDonald, who notes how the lessons she's learned writing about risk management helped save her property on a dark and stormy night.

Indemnity--that is, placing the claimant into the same financial position held prior to a loss--is the best that the insurance business can offer. Theoretically, claimants should not be allowed to profit from a loss. But some jurisdictions actively encourage profiting from insurance by legislating Valued Policy Laws, or court decisions allowing duplicate payments for losses. Ethically, should insurers offer insurance in jurisdictions where the concept of indemnity is ignored? Should insurance professionals seek legislation that returns insurance to providing only indemnity? Post your responses here, and please note what role you play in the industry.

Michael Moore's latest mockumentary, "Sicko," is about as subtle as a sledgehammer in bashing our cockamamie healthcare system, and his lens is way too rose-colored in extolling the virtues of a government-run, single-payer alternative. However, his essential point is valid--that dealing with doctors, hospitals and insurers is too often no better than a shell game, and it's a disgrace we cannot summon the political will to fill the life-threatening gaps facing insured and uninsured Americans alike.

On Monday, I closed my review of "Sicko"--Michael Moore's documentary bashing the U.S. health care system--by asking for suggestions on changes you could live with. Let me start the ball rolling by offering one at the top of my personal wish list. Check it out, let me know what you think, and feel free to weigh in with some of your own ideas.

Those having trouble paying for adequate health care could become a "medical tourist" and seek more affordable services outside of the country, suggested one respondent to my blog on Monday, focusing on our system's shortcomings raised in Michael Moore's "Sicko" documentary. Is this really what we've come to in the United States? Having to offshore our own medical care???

'Sicko' director Michael Moore got bogged down in petty arguments over some of the numbers cited in his documentary while appearing on CNN this week, but managed to get some very compelling points across as well in this ongoing debate about problems undermining our health care security.

In the last of my weeklong series of blogs inspired by Michael Moore's movie, "Sicko," I must admit that while the concept of universal health insurance has undeniable appeal, I find myself wary of trusting the government to deliver on its promises, and worry the majority might end up worse off should it ever come to pass.

I posted a blog entry on June 5, followed up by a column in the June 25 edition of NU, basically raising the question of how truly "independent" independent agents are. I wondered whether such intermediaries fully explain to prospects and clients that their "independence" is limited to serving as agents for those carriers with which they have contracts--that in fact they are not "independent" to do business with just any carrier at any particular time. One agent threw down the gauntlet in a July 3 e-mail and asked for an apology. Click on for our exchange, and please log on to offer your own take on this controversy.

As brilliantly illustrated here by Don Heyl, our design director, there's been quite a brouhaha this month over calls in Congress to add optional wind coverage for homeowners buying flood insurance from the federal government, but the White House pretty much sunk any hopes for the measure by testifying yesterday in no uncertain terms that President Bush will not support any such expansion. Given how screwed up the National Flood Insurance Program is--with its massive deficits--that's probably a good idea.

J. Robert Hunter, insurance director of the Consumer Federation of America, is challenging state regulators to ban the anti-concurrent-causation clause that left many people with both water and wind damage from Hurricane Katrina up the proverbial creek. He contends the clause is impossible for average consumers to understand, while unfairly denying homeowners coverage for clear wind-related losses. What do you think?

Insurers are dancing in the streets, hailing a long-awaited (and feared) report from the Federal Trade Commission concluding not only that credit scores are an “effective predictor” of risk for auto policies, but that the use of credit-based insurance scores “may result in benefits for consumers.” The question is, will the party last? Or will carriers soon be left with a bad hangover?

Four consumer groups have dismissed the Federal Trade Commission report on credit scoring discussed in my July 20 blog entry as "biased insurance industry propaganda," and has called on Congress to "reject the defective study and ban the use of credit scoring in insurance." Click on to read the full release and respond. (I personally think that given the political calculus in Washington, nothing more will come of this until a Democrat is in the White House and Democrats extend their voting leverage in Congress. What do you think?)

Is it wrong to deny patients (or their survivors) who have been harmed by medical providers the freedom to collect whatever a jury will award them, or is it better for society as a whole to impose some predictability on the medical malpractice system? That's the question raised by a July 24 editorial in "Newsday" that offers some alternative solutions, rather than just impose arbitrary caps on damage awards. Click on to check out the editorial and offer your take on the crisis.

It is one thing for a bunch of consumer groups to bash a Federal Trade Commission report giving insurers some support for their use of credit scoring when underwriting auto policies, but it's quite another when there is dissension within the FTC itself. At this point, you have to wonder what credibility the report has left.

Personal finance columnist Jane Bryant Quinn took on the naysayers in the July 30 edition of "Newsweek," contending that universal health insurance is not only possible, but can be pulled off without squeezing taxpayers dry or undermining the quality of care. In her provocative piece, she refutes point by point the classic arguments against expanding on the Medicare template to cover all Americans of any age.