What if I told you that I had something to sell you that you would have to pay for every year, couldn't see, couldn't touch, or feel and the price on it would probably go up every year, would you think that this is a good deal? Of course not. How about if I added the fact that in some cases you would be forced to pay for this? Yep it would even sound more crazy. Well welcome to the insurance industry. So let's see if we can figure out exactly what insurance is? If we go to the dictionary and look up the definition. According to the Webster's online dictionary this is the definition. of insurance:
"the business of insuring persons or property b: coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril c: the sum for which something is insured".

That definition is all well and good in the general sense of the word and remember that is precisely what the dictionary deals with, but it turns out that in many cases, it just doesn't fit anymore. When I used to think of insurance, I felt that it was something that prevented me from losing some investment that I had, to some damaging occurrence. I am talking about things like my car or home. I felt that it would help my family if I died, by providing them with the benefit from an insurance policy on my life. In a way it was true, in times past, one could count on the fact that insurance would provide. Then as I got older I began to see things about insurance that I didn't like very much. I saw court cases where insurance companies were trying to do anything that they could, to get out of paying benefits. There was even a recent story in the news that talked about people that had faithfully been paying their life insurance premiums for many years and as a matter of fact they were taken out of their pay by their employer. When the time came to collect, the company returned all the premiums and refused to pay the benefits. Remember all those damaging hurricanes a couple of years ago in Florida? It took some people over a year to get paid and there are some that never got paid. After the storms, some companies decided that they didn't want to insure those people anymore. The ones that stayed doubled and tripled their rates. Sure it's fine with them if you pay premiums for your whole life, as long as they don't have to pay anything back.

Look at car insurance. If you happen to live in the New York area, you will pay far more than most other people around the country for the same coverage. If you car is a couple of years old and gets into an accident, it most likely won't even be rebuilt with new parts. Hey if these guys are going to use used parts, shouldn't we get a discount on the rates we pay? Most people in this country live in, or near large cities. If the country was considered as a whole area by the insurance industry, no doubt the rates would go down, but the country is divided into areas, thus allowing the insurance companies to say things like, "hey I have to charge you more, you live in a high risk area". What about the fact that after your car is in an accident and even if it is repaired properly, it is never worth as much as a car that wasn't in an accident, shouldn't we get reimbursed for the difference? Isn't car insurance supposed to protect our equity in the car, among other things? Since we are talking about cars, what about those companies that sell car repair insurance? Most of them get a hefty fee and some of them will only pay directly to a repair shop, but the problem is trying to find a repair shop that will recognize them. I had this insurance once, before I got wiser and it turned out to be a blatant scam. I went with a Florida company that advertised that most shops recognize them for payments, so I decided to make monthly payments until the plan was paid up. When I sent in the twelfth and last payment, I received a notice that since I had not paid the last payment the insurance was cancelled. I contacted the company and sent them a copy of the cancelled check that they had cashed and they never responded. After three or four letters later, they were all sent by me, I finally gave up. I was young at the time and should have written to the Florida Attorney General, but you don't think about these things when you are in your early twenties.

One of my pet peeves now is medical insurance. Before I retired I paid medical premiums for insurance to protect myself and my family. The insurance was pretty good in the beginning and picked up almost all of the cost, if you used authorized doctors. As time went by, the co payments and deductibles went up as did the price I had to pay for medicine. I was getting older and I figured that at least when I retired and went onto Medicare, this insurance would become my secondary insurance and the premiums would go way down. Let me tell you this, I am now much older and on Medicare and the premiums for the secondary insurance just keep going up. Here is the sad part, most of the time, they contribute nothing to the medical bill. One may say that I am a fool to keep secondary insurance, but let me tell you this, if we ever have a medical catastrophe, Medicare only pays 80% maximum of the bill. Some medical bills can be hundreds of thousands of dollars and even 20% could be a back breaker. If it wasn't for Medicare, a lot of seniors, most of whom are on fixed or low incomes, wouldn't be able to afford doctor visits, medicines and such.

Some people say that the insurance companies are taking a gamble and should be rewarded. Are insurance companies really taking a risk? The whole idea in insurance is to cover a very large unit. This puts the odds greatly in favor of the insurance company. Some refer to this as the "law of large numbers". Automobile Insurance companies pretty much know about how many accidents will occur in a given year. They adjust their premiums to pay for the claims and still give themselves a hefty profit. When you look at it this way, it is really not a risk. Isn't it funny how they use the national figures to calculate this and yet use regional areas to calculate your premium, as I said above? When we talked about home insurance, we talked about the recent damage to homes in Florida from hurricanes. This has become a risk in that area and that is why this risk was eliminated by not insuring them anymore. Another way that the home insurance business is eliminating paying some claims is by attaching riders to their policies that state that they don't cover homes for certain types of damage anymore. This is usually flood damage, tornado damage, earthquake damage and such. If they keep going the way that they are, will there be anything that they cover anymore?

Here is one of the many horror stories from the health insurance industry. Two people who were covered by health insurance had a baby. The baby was born with a tumor in her jaw, but the parents figured that at least the health insurance would cover this condition. When the medical bills for this condition hit $20,000, the insurance company said that this was enough and cancelled her coverage retroactively. There is now a trend among health insurers to try and weed out those who are covered, that might become sick and drop them. When one insurance carrier was asked about this they replied that the reason they were doing this was if they didn't, they will end up with all the high risk people.

One poor guy, among many, had his business insurance premiums raised. First I must tell you that he runs a welding shop and has never had a claim. His insurance premium jumped from $1400 yearly to over $6,000. He decided to call his company and find out what the reason was for more than tripling his premiums. He was told that they had to go up because of 9/11 and the increase in cruise ship illnesses. You have to admit these are some really creative excuses.

It is beginning to look like new laws are desperately needed to regulate the insurance companies in this country. If they want our business, they should be forced to adhere to fair terms for all. They should also be told that we will not tolerate being ripped off any longer and if they withhold insurance, then the government will provide it and they will not be allowed to sell any insurance here. It seems that more and more companies are ripping us off and this administration is encouraging them by doing absolutely nothing to stop the abuse. We know what the energy companies are doing to us along with the drug companies. This is turning into a tidal wave of abuse of the American public and something needs to be done.