>> In other words, insurance co's are profit-making institutions, as any 
legit
>> business must be. But > like you've described.
>>
>> Any chance that government restrictions before the election, were so 
severe,
>> that even legit, clean companies could only lose money? I have no info
>
>        The thing that we have to do is to stop thinking of insurance
>companies as being legit businesses.  If you think the legal thieft at
>Las Vegas is legit, you've got to love the insurance biz.   Banks, too!

Huh?

Insurance Co's (the clean ones, anyway) deliver a valuable service,
specified in advance, in exchange for money paid, also specified in
advance. (Or don't you consider the lifting of a $500,000 liability
off your shoulders, to be valuable?).

I might not drive at all, if I was putting at risk my security and
fortune, not only for the rest of my life, but that of my family and
heirs too (yes, that's how it works). The only reason it's mandatory
(aside from Big Brother wanting to "help" me as much as possible) is
because some people are shitheads and don't want to take responsibility
for their own actions.

The fact is, driving is dangerous, and puts those around you at risk as
well as yourself. Are you a perfect driver, with a perfect automobile?
I am not, of course. It is incumbent upon me to protect those around me
as best I can, from the risk I am putting them under, by driving my car
next to theirs.

This stuff is all obvious and well known, of course. So how do you cover
this risk? Coverage is NOT an option for any moral and sensible person,
laws or no laws. I'm not claiming the present insurance co's are perfect
by any means. But they do do what we need, better than anything else
we've come up with. And I, in my ignorance, don't know what to suggest,
that won't do more harm than good (govt regulation falls into this 
category).

Anyone have any ideas?

This still gets away from my original point-- the starting point of this
thread. If there is corruption etc. in the insurance industry, how do
we find it? There's sure a lot of smoke. Any fire there? We need certain
information to even start looking, which might be real tough to find if
there is, indeed, corruption.

And so far, no one (except Cheese-- right on, bro) has made the slightest
effort to track down any of this info-- or even start.

Let's get it in gear, ladies and gents, or else stop whining about those
mean, nasty insurance companies! We've wasted a lot of bandwidth here,
griping about it, with zero results-- hardly surprising, considering that
we haven't been trying to achieve results-- just whining.

I'm no better-- I don't know where to find this info either. But it has
to be found, or things definitely won't get better.

 -Steve Maher   smaher@gi.com   '71 VW Transporter