WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BUYING AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE IN CONNECTICUT?

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BUYING AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE IN CONNECTICUT?

What did you pay for a movie in 1977? How about a half-gallon of milk or a loaf of bread? What did it cost you to get treated for broken leg? How much money did an elementary school teacher earn?

With the passage of time, the cost of everything has gone up. That includes the cost of repairing a car and paying “fair just and reasonable damages” negligently inflicted in a car crash. But during all of this time, the minimum insurance limits required to drive a car in Connecticut have not risen. The minimum has remained stagnant at $20,000 per person per car accident; $40,000 per car accident and $10,000 for property damage. This means that no one injured person can receive damages exceeding $20,000 and no matter the number of injured people, the aggregate damages cannot exceed $40,000 with a $10,000 limit to repair or replace all of the “other vehicles involved in the crash.” It should be time for a change.

On February 27 the State Legislature’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee passed a bill to raise the minimum insurance limits to $40,000 per person, $50,000 per accident and $20,000 for property damage. If passed by the majority of the House of Representatives and the State Senate and then signed by Governor Rell, it will be progress. Not only will the state government make some progress toward a more equitable system of legal accountability, but a requirement for increased coverage limits should provide some relief to people who now pay for drivers who are underinsured.

Of course, there are always two sides to a story and by increasing the minimum required insurance coverage the legislature may be inadvertently encouraging more people to drive without insurance in violation of Section 14-112 of the Connecticut General Statutes. But in all fairness, there must be realistic minimum responsibilities met in exchange for the privilege of registering a car and operating on the highways and roads of this state.

Meeting the minimum insurance requirements of the state is rarely adequate protection for you, your family members and people you may injure. Our web site, http://www.casperdetoledo.com/ has a broader discussion of considerations to undertake when purchasing automobile insurance in Connecticut.

You should make your feelings known about this and other legislation pending before the state legislature. Contact your State Representative and State Senator.

CBIA and the Chamber of Commerce - Incestuous Manipulation for the Wealthy

Connecticut Business and Industry Association and the Chamber of Commerce – Incestuous Manipulation for the Wealthy

While it doesn’t keep me up at night, I must admit that the gross manipulation of the political process by the likes of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (“CBIA”) and the Chambers of Commerce is insidious. Organizationally, the CBIA is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s state affiliate. They think that they can misrepresent facts to political agencies and the public without any consequence.

Last week I received the “CBIA News”, a periodic Journal published by the CBIA. This propaganda tools is used for the ostensible purpose of communicating to CBIA members and who knows who else about issues currently relevant in the public domain. The lead article in the February 2007 edition was an article entitled “Improving health care quality”, certainly a noble venture. Ironically, the CBIA has long teamed up with the Connecticut Medical Society and local medical groups like the Fairfield County Medical Society conniving to find ways to make health care professionals less accountable for their wrongdoing. In doing so the CBIA has fostered a system that was guaranteed to worsen the quality of health care often by using scare tactics to forestall meaningful reform.

So now CBIA is looking for political cover to make it look like it’s a good citizen when in reality, the probability is that CBIA and the Chambers of Commerce are now teaming together to find a way to cut employer expenses on the backs of hospitals, physicians who are underpaid and over-papered. The article boasts that CBIA has become part of a coalition called the Connecticut Health Insurance Policy Council. Part of its goal appears to be the implementation of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services effort to encourage employers to support health care quality and cost reporting to employees. So which employers does the CBIA refer to in this article? Electric Boat; Boehringer Ingelheim. Aetna; General Electric, Pitney Bowes; United Technologies, Xerox and Cigna – fairly representative of Connecticut’s business environment. Certainly what’s good for these employers must be good for the average employer in Ansonia or Bridgeport.

Connecticut Business and Industry Association - Agents of Deception

Connecticut Business and Industry Association - Agents of Deception

I continue to be totally frustrated with the approach that the Connecticut Business and Industry Association ("CBIA") has taken in responding to legitimate inquiries concerning the information that it is presenting to the legislature on issues relating to people who get hurt. On January 26 (see this Blog) I wrote to the CBIA requesting some very basic information that was calculated to assess the legitimacy of the position that CBIA has been taking in opposition to very basic and sensible reforms of the workers' compensation system. You may know that in 1993, the legislature capitulated to pressure from the CBIA and Chambers of Commerce that complained the workers' compensation costs were too high and it was creating an anti-competitive environment int he state. Well the pendulum has swung. Insurance companies are making oodles of money and not passing the savings on to customers; the large and wealthy self-insured employers are pocketing the excess; and insured workers are suffering the indignity of being unable to make ends meet.

Here are the questions that I posed to the CBIA:

1. The actuarial data that demonstrates the cost to each class of employer should these measures be adopted including measures that would expand scarring and discretionary awards under 31-308(a)
2. Any analysis that justifies or excuses the routine delay in the payment of workers' compensation benefits.
3. The harm that would be occasioned to employers who were required to advise their employees of their potential entitlement to workers' compensation benefits following injury.
4. The harm that would be occasioned to employers which were required to help their injured employees complete the paperwork necessary to file a workers' compensation claim.

When CBIA finally responded to my inquiry, this is what I received:


CBIA
Connecticut Business& Industry Association

February 13, 2007

Mr. Stewart M. Casper
Casper & de Toledo LLC
1458 Bedford Street
Stamford, CT 06905

Dear Mr. Casper:

I am responding to inquiries you made regarding the position of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, Inc. (CBIA) on Connecticut's workers compensation system.

You have misinterpreted CBIA's position on the state's workers compensation system. CBIA strongly supports maintaining Connecticut's workers compensation reforms and opposes efforts to increase workers compensation costs. CBIA's position is supported by our membership, approved by our Board of Directors and embodied in testimony that we have presented before the General Assembly's Labor and Public Employees Committee.

We are not unmindful of the impact of the workers compensation system on injured employees. That is why we have worked with the commission for years on streamlining the process and getting workers to work sooner.

It is also important to recognize that Connecticut's workers compensation system and its reforms affect both fully‑insured and self‑insured companies in the state.

We understand that you are an active plaintiff's attorney and that your opinion on this subject differs from CBIA's as well as the vast majority of our membership. However, our membership and our Board have clearly communicated to us to urge lawmakers to maintain the workers compensation reforms and to refrain from doing anything that will increase workers compensation costs.

Sincerely,

Eric J. George

My email response to Mr. George follows:

2/16/07

Mr. George: No sooner than I sent my email to you today I received your letter of February 13. Your letter, however, fails to specify the manner in which I have misrepresented CBIA's position concerning "the state's workers' compensation system." Perhaps I would understand better if you would provide some specifics.

Also, your letter fails to address any of the questions that I posed on January 26. Instead, you have merely suggested that it is the policy of CBIA to resist any effort to reform the system no matter the policy involved if the reform would cost employer's anything.

Perhaps what is most disturbing about your response is your emphasis that CBIA's policies affect "both fully-insured and self-insured companies in the state." I'm not certain why that is significant in your mind. Perhaps it is because the fully insured employers are being gouged by insurers and the self-insured companies, which tend to be the larger and wealthier employers, are simply taking advantage of injured workers.

Finally, the fact that I am an active Plaintiff's attorney and my views differ from CBIA's policy, does not change the fact that injured employees are suffering in this state. As an employer and member of CBIA, I would be content to pay more for a fairer system. My position on income taxes is likewise the same. I am prepared to pay more for better schools, better healthcare and a better environment. And I firmly believe that sound public policy ought to be debated upon facts. Your response to my inquiry failed to provide any factual support for CBIA's position. In this regard, you have exposed CBIA's policy makers for the charlatans they are.

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: MORE CONCERNED WITH POLITICS THAN POLICY

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: MORE CONCERNED WITH POLITICS THAN POLICY

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation publishes a daily report on health care issues at www.kaisernetwork.org . On February 1, Kaiser published an article on political issues from capital hill. With the tide having changed in Washington and Congress now led by Democratic majorities, it appears that the American Medical Association will not concentrate its efforts on consumer friendly issues such as expanding health coverage for the uninsured and resisting efforts to reduce Medicare payments to physicians. This does not mean that the American Medical Association will abandon its efforts the harm patients to enrich physicians by limiting the rights of consumers. Rather that effort will not target state legislatures where such limiting efforts have a chance to be enacted despite their obvious harmful effects on injured patients. Perhaps someday the AMA will focus its efforts on all of the harmful conduct of the insurance and HMO industry.