First Dollar Coverage Auto Insurance 

I had to put new tires on my vehicle.  They were expensive.  I wish they were covered by insurance.  Just changing the oil is expensive.  That should be covered too.  With the current cost of gas, filling the tank is expensive.  Why not have all these normal, routine, and maintenance items covered by insurance?

Let’s take a look at how this would work.  When we go into any auto repair or maintenance facility, we would give them our auto insurance card.  With gas stations, maybe the insurance card could be like a credit card so we can just swipe the card.  That would be really convenient. 

After we receive the auto service or product like gas, the retailer providing the service will bill our insurance company.  The insurance company will then review the claim to determine if it is covered by the insurance policy you or your employer has bought. 

The insurance claims person will then check if you have met your deductible and what percentage is your co-pay portion.   The insurance company will then notify you and the retailer submitting the claim how much the insurance company is paying and how much is your responsibility.  After the retailer knows how much of the claim is your responsibility, they will bill you. 

Obviously, the insurance company will have to raise your insurance premiums to cover the additional claims.  There will also be substantial additional costs for handling all the additional claims.  This will require more employees and more insurance company facilities.  The insurance company will also need additional profits. 

There will also be additional expenses for the retailer providing you products and services for your vehicles.   They now have to submit claims to your insurance company and then bill you for any portion of the claim that is your responsibility.  This will add to the labor cost of serving you. 

There is also an additional monetary cost of doing business to the retailer.  Additional working capital will be required, as it will take longer for the retailer to get paid for the product or service.  The cost of the products and service will have to go up to cover these additional costs of doing business.

Costs will also go up due to lack of competition.  Why would you as a consumer care how much you are paying for your gas?  Why would you care what kind of gas mileage your vehicle gets, or how much you drive?  The gas is covered by insurance anyway, so who cares? 

Your insurance premiums will increase tremendously and will continue to increase.  The cost of the products and services for your automobile will also increase substantially. 

How much will your total vehicle costs increase?  It is safe to expect an increase of 300 to 500 percent, but who cares.  It would be so convenient. 

Does this sound ridiculously stupid?  Why should it?  This is exactly what we are doing now with first dollar medical insurance.  Why doesn’t that sound stupid?

We can never control health care costs until we stop paying normal, routine, and maintenance heath care costs with insurance.  Insurance has created the problem.  We can’t solve the problem with insurance. 

We must move to true major medical insurance and medical savings plans to control health care costs.  If we don’t, we will eventually see government provided health care. 

I don’t mean “Single Payer.”  “Single Payer” still has the same claims processing costs as present medical insurance coverage, and we know the government has never handled these things as well as private industry.