It is that time of the year again, the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association (MCCA) announced the other day that they will be increasing our cost to insure an automobile by $20 a year in the State of Michigan.

That's a 13% increase for the privilege to drive an automobile in Michigan. This 13% increase is on top of the 6.3% increase they imposed on us in 2017.  That means the per-vehicle assessment fee will increase from $172 to $192 a year on July 1, 2018.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the association (this association is dominated by insurance companies), which runs the fund states that the increase is needed because of the higher-than-anticipated claims costs.  They state that $161 dollars of the $192 dollar total cost will be used to cover anticipated new claims and expenses and the remaining $31 dollars will be used to address their, once again estimated, $2.3 billion dollar deficit.

If you did not already know Michigan's MCCA system is very particular to Michigan and only the state of Michigan.  The fund is used to provide for unlimited, lifetime medical auto insurance benefits for catastrophic claims. This fund kicks in once the covered benefits of an individual exceeds $550,000 per claim.

No other state has this type of fund.

As I informed you back in September of 2016 the national average for auto insurance is approximately $1,325 per year, the average cost of auto insurance in Michigan is $2738 per year.  Michigan’s average auto insurance cost is approximately a 107% more than the national average.

That is quite a premium to have the honor to drive an automobile in the state of Michigan.  In fact would you not say that driving an automobile in Michigan is a basic human right, I think Michigan’s Democrat Senator Stabenow would.

In fact just yesterday I informed you what Michigan’s Senator Stabenow said about prescription drugs when introducing 3 bills to the Senate to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.  She said:

We are in a situation where pharmaceutical drug companies see prescription drugs as a commodity…If you really need it you will pay more, which is exactly the opposite of what should be happening in medicine…These aren't things that are just frills for people this may be the difference in someone living or not and medicine should be a basic human right, it shouldn't be treated like any other commodity.

So Senator Stabenow will you encourage your colleagues in the Michigan House and Senate to introduce bills to lower the outrageous cost of automobile insurance in the State of Michigan, many people believe that driving in today’s day and age is a basic human right?

By the way the MCCA refuses to open up their books for transparency purposes and let us see exactly what their cost are, interesting is it not.

When they were sued to open their books and be transparent about their numbers the Michigan courts ruled the MCCA is not subject to Michigan's Freedom of Information Act.

The MCCA response to calls to be transparent about their finances was to say that they release “adequate information about the rate-setting process”.

How would we know that they release “Adequate information” if they refuse to let anyone audit their finances?

By the way the MCCA informs us all that they have assets of approximately $20.7 billion, but estimated that they have liabilities totaling approximately $23 billion.

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