Sen. Coleman Young II pushes for savings of 30% to 40% for auto insurance consumers in Senate Bill 248, but Republicans & Sen. Virgil Smith Refuse
Guess what state Senator from Detroit fought the good fight to try to ensure the Senate’s latest No Fault “reform” plan, SB 248, would actually guarantee savings for auto insurance consumers?
Hint: It wasn’t Sen. Virgil Smith (D-Detroit). I’ve previously written that if they could, the Michigan auto insurance industry would make Sen. Smith their patron saint of boosting profits at the expense of Detroit residents and seriously injured car accident victims.
It was Sen. Coleman Young II (D-Detroit). And he deserves our thanks and gratitude for his efforts to save No Fault and to make it more affordable.
Unfortunately, his efforts were ultimately beaten down by Senate Republicans and his Democratic colleague from Detroit, Sen. Smith.
To learn more, please check out Michigan Auto Law’s blog post, “These Senators deserve to be voted right out of office after passing No Fault ‘reform’ law SB 248.”
But Sen. Young made the arguments that needed to be made on behalf of all of us.
Here are some of Sen. Young’s proposals:
- 20% No Fault auto insurance premium savings. Plus, if an auto insurer fails to reduce prices, then its Chief Executive Officer’s salary will be reduced by approximately $4,500 per week.
- 40% No Fault auto insurance premium savings.
- 30% No Fault auto insurance premium savings.
- 20% No Fault auto insurance premium savings
- 10% No Fault auto insurance premium savings.
- 5% No Fault auto insurance premium savings.
Source: Journal of the Senate, April 16, 2015, Pages 450-455.
Sen. Young also made the following compelling arguments from the Senate floor:
- “This bill is nothing more than a giveaway to insurance companies and another backdoor tax increase for working families.”
- “This bill allows insurance companies that are already swimming in profits to flood their pools at the expense of, yes, regular Michigan residents.”
- “The consumer, as you know, already pays the highest auto insurance premiums in the nation. Please don’t tell me that its competition—that competition between companies will drive down prices because they haven’t. Not now and they won’t in the future and they won’t under this bill. There are over 800 companies licensed to sell insurance products in Michigan. I don’t know how much more competitive you can get than that.”
- “I am literally talking about 5 percent. Mr. President [of the Senate], I can’t get rate reduction for the greater good of the people of Michigan? Aren’t they worth 5 percent? Not 10, not 20, not 30, not 40, not even 50, but 5. Are you serious? This is outlandish, and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. People are going to report this in 20 years as a blooper and an embarrassment—5 percent; 5.”
- “I know this might be a radical idea, but how about we give discounts to people who are good drivers? I think this nonsense of giving discounts based on your credit score or education level has nothing to do with determining whether or not you will run into a tree or do donuts in a parking lot.”
- “[T]here is nothing in this bill that will roll back rates or even guarantee rolled-back rates. I can’t even get 5 percent rolled back, not that I am bitter—I am just saying. So I don’t understand how we are going to get up here and say that we care but won’t have any consumer protections. I don’t understand how we say we care about the city and we are going to mandate price controls for hospitals but not mandate price controls for the insurance industry. That is the height of hypocrisy as far as I am concerned. It’s the hypocrisy of our democracy and it must stop.”
Source: Journal of the Senate, April 16, 2015, Pages 464-467
Way to go.
