The Conservative View: When Donkeys Fly

This week's Conservative View, by Adair County Commissioner Russell Turner (R-Stilwell).

The Conservative View
by Russell Turner

When Donkeys Fly

Anyone who owns an automobile learns pretty quickly about the insurance industry and the need to have insurance on his car.  In most, if not all, states require drivers to have liability coverage. If a person finances his car, the lending institution requires that the owner must have full coverage to insure that the loan will be paid off in the event of an accident.  If a driver owns his car, it is his business to decide if he want to purchase full coverage or not.  The prudent driver knows that life is a gamble and he has to decide if he is willing to take the chance of not having full coverage.  Protecting our savings is also a gamble, before 2008 individual accounts in banks were insured up to $100,000.00.  Most individual bank accounts — including checking, savings, trusts, certificates of deposit (CDs), etc. — are covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.  If a husband and wife had a joint savings account, for example, they were typically protected up to $200,000.  If a sole account owner had the same $200,000 ... he would have been wise to open two $100,000 accounts at two separate banks to get full coverage.  Thousands of people using Indymac Bank, a California institution that went under in July 2008, did NOT understand these things.

There is currently legislation now working its way through Washington with a little-known provision that will retroactively insure about 8,700 depositors at Indymac Bank and five other institutions that went belly up before lawmakers increased FDIC coverage.  Our government has made a habit of bailing out businesses and firms that didn’t use good financial sense, and now they want to bail out people who didn’t take time to protect their own money.  While this is a small bailout, the cost will be anywhere from $180 million to $200 million.

If the same mentality could be applied to the auto insurance industry, we could buy a car and drive it without insurance and save the premiums that we would pay and use the money for something else.  If we did have the misfortune to become involved in an accident, then we could go to the local insurance agent and buy full coverage and get our car repaired.  We all know that would only happen when donkeys would learn to fly.  If our government continues to ignore the rules they create why even pretend to have rules at all, when they're so easily bent and exceptions are so easily made?

If you wish to contact Russell Turner, or want to subscribe to his email loop, email him at rdrepublican@windstream.net.