EDITORIAL; call for Status Quo

 

Tuesday, Mar 24,2009, 12:09:27 PM   Click:

Boston Herald
Published: Sunday, 22 March 2009
Score for bureaucrats!

Yes, thanks to pressure applied by legislators and insurance agents, Massachusetts remains the only State in the nation, where a panel of the State receives bureaucrats to decide whether an insurance company instead imposed a surcharge an accident on Bay State drivers.

Insurance Commissioner Nonnie Burnes has officially endorsed a plan to eliminate certain functions of the division of the Board, a relic of the Bay State to the former flat rate system of insurance.

Burnes decision is disappointing, but frankly not altogether surprising, given the fact that nearly two-thirds of the Assembly have signed a bill that, if it had not changed his mind, he changed for her.

"We have every confidence that this new plan to protect consumers and provide an equitable solution, but we have heard the concerns expressed by the general public," Burnes said in announcing the cancellation.

These concerns do not seem to extend to spend millions on a board of 15 members, which takes six months to rule on an appeal, or that all other States to maintain such a body.

Supporters of the old way of doing business have cited the case of the Board to return nearly 50 percent of fault to decisions made by insurance companies as proof they are wrong half the time. But this assumes that the board is not just to play King Solomon.

We Burnes (and Governor Deval Patrick) to thank for the introduction of competition in the market for auto insurance - Geico just last Friday finally announced plans to provide Bay State drivers. But this development is regrettable step backwards.

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