Highway robbery : the two-decade battle to reform America's automobile insurance system

Author / Creator

Kinzler, Peter, author

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Online

Physical

Summary

"Ever since shortly after the first cars appeared on American roads, all states have operated under the "fault and liability insurance system," where a driver's degree of negligence, if any, determ...

"Ever since shortly after the first cars appeared on American roads, all states have operated under the "fault and liability insurance system," where a driver's degree of negligence, if any, determined whether they were entitled to receive compensation. Resolving disputes over fault was a slow process that, in many cases, left injured people without recoveries while lawyers representing the injured person and the insurance company haggled over the amount of recompense. It was a system that most commentators found did not serve injured people nearly as well as it served the lawyers and insurers. The tort system fails to compensate a large percentage of injured people, overcompensates those who suffer minor injuries and undercompensates those with serious injuries, and often takes years to resolve serious injury claims. Highway Robbery is a first-hand account of the battle to create a better, no-fault system against the opposition of the special interests determined to protect their economic stake in the existing insurance system. Peter Kinzler tells the story of his involvement in two failed federal efforts, twenty years apart, to enact no-fault automobile insurance legislation. The first congressional fight in the 1970s, in which he was the lead House staffer, was between the initial supporters of the no-fault reform--primarily consumer groups and unions--and the opponents, the vested interests of lawyers and insurers. The second fight was between primarily consumer activists and conservative organizations and the same special interests, during which time Kinzler was the president of the Coalition for Auto-Insurance Reform (CAR), a private, nonprofit coalition organized solely to help secure passage of a federal bill in the 1990s and 2000s. Both efforts illustrate the challenge of passing significant federal legislation, especially in our polarized, hyper-partisan age"--

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