Enacting a Concealed Carry Insurance Mandate

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While it would be ideal to have a gun insurance adopted at a single time as one well designed national mandate, it’s likely that political reality will force it to come into being in stages.  The logical place to start is for the more amenable states to require insurance for holders of permits to carry firearms in public.  If this can be extended to general coverage of guns in some of these states, the stage is set for a federal mandate for top-down insurance which extends into any state requiring insurance.  This in turn will encourage other states to have their own requirements in order not to have their citizens paying for insurance without their state receiving benefits for victims.

Concealed Carry as a Start and an End in Itself

Mandating gun insurance for holders of permits to carry weapons in public is much simpler than mandating gun insurance in general.  Permit holders are already registered with state government agencies; there is no need for an additional registration system.  They are generally responsible people who have already shown their willingness to cooperate with reasonable regulations.  Insurers will find these people to be desirable customers.  Most measures to deal with gun violence have to deal with the flood of illegal weapons that come from states with weak regulation of gun trafficking.  But, states requiring insurance for permits can simply refuse to recognize permits from other states without insurance requirements or require proof of insurance in addition to such a permit.

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The Need for State Regulated Gun Insurance with a Federal Mandate.

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The answer to the question of whether we need to mandate gun insurance at the federal or the state level is to have the mandate at the federal level and the regulation of the insurance at a state level.  The special problems that guns have of illegally traveling across state lines to do their damage and of states varying so much in their willingness to regulate guns can be solved by this structure.  The federal mandate should implement the top-down process for continuing insurer responsibility advocated by this blog.  It should require that the insurance pay benefits to victims in accordance with the gun insurance requirement in the state where the shooting occurs.

One of the special difficulties that makes guns different than almost any other risk, is that move around from state to state so easily once they are in illegal hands.  Much of the country has a relatively small problem with illegal guns and people there see no need to make access difficult.  In other parts of the country, there is a major problem with death and injuries from illegal guns.  No matter how carefully places like New York, Chicago and Washington, DC work to stop the transfer of firearms to dangerous people they cannot control the flood of weapons that come in from areas with more permissive policies. The process has been named the Iron Pipeline.

This blog believes that requiring insurance is a practical way to deal with the problem.  Insurers that remain responsible for deaths and injuries from guns after they pass into illegal hands will set up conditions to prevent that passage.  They will find ways to do this that are minimal inconveniences to legitimate gun owners.  The question is how to get a requirement for such insurance into place in this environment.  The states that sell the most guns are least likely to make such a mandate.

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Registration of guns and confirmation of insurance

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In order to have a system of insurance the covers the dangers of having guns in our society, it is necessary to have a way to be sure that insurance exists that covers each victimization. The simplest system is to mandate the insurance and have the government check that it is in place. This requires that the government be aware of the identity of the gun owners in order to enforce the mandate. This means registration of guns or gun owners. The political objection to this is very great. If it is necessary to override this objection or wait for it to dissipate, then implementation of insurance for gun victims will be greatly delayed.

The Objection To Registration

Many people who are concerned about gun safety are not aware of the depth of the fear of government held by some of the gun rights defenders. There are a considerable number who have deep and broad paranoia which has been focused on this issue with severe personal mental health issues but an even larger number are simply trained to express this distrust by gun organizations, the media and those who want even more guns in circulation. Even more are aware that some form of tracking guns is essential for application of many measures to control or limit their circulation. They may fight registration of firearms as a way to prevent control of firearms.

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John Wasik Calls for Gun Insurance Again.

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In a new article published Sept. 20, 2013 on the Forbes website and titled “Five Reasons Why Gun Insurance Can Survive Political Indifference”, he advocated for insurance as the most effective and practical solution to gun violence in more detail than ever before.  Wasik is a pioneer in pointing out the need for gun insurance starting well before the tragic incident at Sandy Hook.  His prior articles include:

February 15, 2011 in Reuters: “Why gun insurance should be mandatory”

December 17, 2012:  “Newtown’s New Reality: Using Liability Insurance to Reduce Gun Deaths”

December 29, 2012: “Gun Liability Insurance: Still a Viable Proposal”

April 4, 2013: “Gun Insurance: An Economic Argument”

His five reasons are:

1. Liability Coverage Addresses the Issue of Potential Future Harm Better than Any Gun-Control Legislation.

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Paths to Adopting Gun Insurance, General and Concealed Carry

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While it would be best to adopt gun insurance in the United States by national legislation that puts into place a full blown no-fault plan with the “Top-Down” provisions to guarantee that it covers all of the millions of guns in the country, it is not necessary to wait until that is politically feasible to make progress in protecting victims.  There are several paths where an important part of this protection can be implemented both for it’s own value and to demonstrate the practicality of more complete plans.

The first and the one that already in the public eye is to adopt compulsory liability insurance for gun owners who are registered in particular states.  This is the plan that is being offered in state legislatures.  It would apply to a fairly small subset of the injuries and killings because it has no way to be in effect for illegal guns.  But, as the proportion of gun injuries from legally possessed guns is going up due to a downward trend of crime in general and a greatly increased spread of legal guns, it would have a substantial value.  It may very will be accomplished in some places in the next few years.  This is the type of adoption that is seen by most writers who suggest insurance in the mass media.

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Compulsory Firearm Insurance for Concealed Carry

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Concealed carry permits provide a situation where gun insurance is needed that is much simpler than guns in general.  Taking the guns out into the community provides an additional reason to provide guaranteed financial responsibility and many of the problems that have to be overcome to design good insurance are mitigated.  Some of the reasons that required insurance would be easier to implement are:

  • Most permit holders are generally responsible people and many have purchased or would purchase liability insurance to give legal protection to the insurance owner.  The insurance that will be recommended here is much broader than currently available liability insurance which is designed to protect victims, it will also provide better protection to the permit holder.
  • Permit holders are already registered with government entities.  Enforcement of this insurance requirement will not require a new registration system.
  • The problem that “criminals won’t buy insurance” is not applicable as they won’t have permits.
  • Insurers are likely to be more willing to provide the required insurance to this group.
  • The Supreme Court of the United States has declared that there is Constitutional protection for having self defense guns in the home; but it has not done so for guns in other places.

There are also good reasons over and above the reasons for guns in general to require this insurance for guns being carried in the community: Continue reading →

Self-Defense Gun Insurance

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Persons who carry guns for self defense or who keep guns in their homes often worry about the liability should they shoot someone.  This motivates the drive by the NRA and other pro-gun organizations to adopt laws that immunize shooters, but it is also makes a substantial market for legal protection. It’s likely that steady publicity given to dubious claims of millions of defensive uses of guns make many people think that such protection is needed.  There have sprung up a number of organizations which attempt to fill this market with products which may contain an insurance component or, if not claimed to be insurance, are similar to it in most respects.

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NYT OP/ED’s on Gun Manufacturer Responsibility—Insurance by Other Means

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This is hot stuff!!  A very heartening reminder that the drive to establish a responsible gun policy in our country is here to the finish.

A pair of important OP/ED’s to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the injuries they create has been published in the New York Times.  The first “Make Gun Companies Pay Blood Money” by Lucinda M. Finley and John G. Culhane advocates a compensation fund to pay victims of gun violence financed by a tax on gun manufacturers or importers.  The second “Let Shooting Victims Sue” by Robert M. Morgenthau calls for rolling back the special laws that protect gun manufacturers and others in the gun trade from liability for the damage their wares create.

Make Gun Companies Pay Blood Money

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A Progression of Kinds of Insurance for Guns

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The purpose of having insurance for victims of gun violence is to provide money for the many needs they have after they suffer from a shooting. The insurance should be structured to pay in the various situations that occur, for the various needs that are faced and in a timely manner. There are lots of kinds of insurance in use today and several ones will be examined in the chapters that follow. Starting with the most basic insurance designed only to protect the buyer of the insurance, we will add features until we see that it is possible to create a system that works to provide the needed protection. We’ll start with the simplest in the progression. Continue reading →

Opposition to Mandatory Insurance in 1929

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It’s becoming clear that the underlying reason for insurance industry opposition to requiring insurance for guns is the latest move in a very old battle to keep the government out of regulating insurance and leaving the path clear for insurers to maximize their interests and profits.  In a fascinating book from 1929 presenting both sides of the debate Edison L. Bowers, its editor from Ohio State University, wrote in an introduction:

No large group of persons stands as sponsors for compulsory automobile insurance in any of its forms, although an association has been formed to promote the compensation insurance idea. As already suggested, however, there is a strong undercurrent of public opinion to the effect that something needs to be done to curb the growing menace of the automobile, and that compulsory insurance of some sort will help in that direction. The opposition, on the other hand, is much better organized and considerably stronger. Both the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Automobile Association have declared against compulsory insurance in its present contemplated form. The latter organization opposes it particularly on the ground that such insurance would not prevent accidents, which end is the basic issue in the problem.

 

The strongest opposition comes from a source least expected. The insurance companies have definitely declared against compulsory insurance. Their attitude has added new fuel to the controversy. It has raised the old issue of the “vested interests” versus the public. … the private interests present the argument that legislation should never invade the realm of private enterprise, that any change contrary to the welfare of private interests is un-American, socialistic, and perhaps unconstitutional.[i]

By the time compulsory insurance was being adopted in New York State in 1956 at least 85% of the motorists in that state had voluntary insurance with almost no regulation of terms and rates.  The insurers were loth to allow a mandate which they were sure (and correctly so) would lead to regulation and especially regulation of rates.  This history indicates that the insurance industry is no friend of the public but it will bend to the public will when it is finally expressed and then will serve the public.

[i] Edison L. Bowers, “Introductory Note,” in Selected Articles on Compulsory Automobile Insurance: Liability and Compensation for Personal Injury, ed. Edison L. Bowers (The H.W. Wilson Company, 1929), 16.