ER Shootings Show Need for No-Fault Insurance for Guns

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An OP-ED  in the New York Times on Jan 1, 2013 by David Newman titled “At the E.R., Bearing Witness to Gun Violence” does not mention insurance but shows the wide variety of cases which arrive.  The author linking to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine states that household members are 18 times more likely than intruders to be the victim.  NRA insurance excludes members of the gun owners family from coverage even if the gun owner is sued by them.    The author also states a quarter of gun crimes in American E.R.’s were committed with guns wrested from armed guards citing an article in The Annals of Emergency Medicine.  Assuming the shooter is indigent and uninsured (a good bet) the victim would have to sue the hospital who’s insurance company has deep pockets for defending the lawsuit.  Perhaps there will be some free immediate treatment in such cases; but how about follow up.  Fortunately, the article states that “Case fatality inside the hospital was much lower in the ED setting (19%) than other sites.”  Low fatality makes insurance more important because of the need to take care of the injured both immediately and over time.

This blog is dedicated to advocating for developing an insurance plan which covers all situations and all shooters, at fault or not, legal or not, known or unknown.  Other posts will analyze what is necessary to reach that goal.

NRA Liability Insurance vs. Complete No-Fault Insurance Costs

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The NRA offers liability insurance for gun owners.  With the $100,000 limit and self-defence coverage the cost is $180.00 per year.  It only covers liability after the injured person wins a law suit and has many exclusions.  The self-defense part is by a separate endorsement.  It is excess liability so if the gun owners homeowners insurance pay NRA insurance will not.  It does, however, cover the individual owner and any number of guns owned or used by that person.

The calculation in the post on this Blog Gun Insurance Would Not Be Expensive shows Continue reading →

Gun Insurance Would Not Be Expensive

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                Getting an approximate estimate of the cost of Gun Insurance that would protect everyone is important even though the parameters of an insurance system have not been developed.  In many ways, the wide experience with automobile insurance will serve as a model for the system to come.  There are available sources for the numbers needed to make an estimate if one assumes a certain level of coverage and benefits.

The Insurance Information Institute publishes overall numbers for automobile insurance.  The particular items that interest us are for private passenger automobile insurance (excludes commercial):

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Comments flood Eugene Robinson Washington Post Opinion

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Eugene Robinson has an article “Stop the gun madness” in the Washington Post opinion section.  It calls for regulation but does not mention regulation.  It’s of interest to this blog because of the flood of comments.  There are over 2000 comments in about 24 hours as of 4:45 EST on Jan 1, 2013 and it is getting several comments a minute.  A rough scan of the comments shows a mixture with more in favor of increased regulation.  I think this reflects Robinson’s usual readership but is different than the bulk of comments in other places which are typically hostle and opposed to all gun regulation.  It raises the question of whether the dialog will permenently change after Newtown.

Useful Post by Ben Achtenberg on treating Guns like Cars for Insurance.

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Ben Achtenberg has an article in the Caring for Survivors of Torture blog titled “We Already Have a Way to Cut Gun Deaths.”  It makes the case for treating gun ownership with the same standards of responsibility as cars in detail and with strength.  He points out our willingness to accept driving tests, licensing, training and mandatory insurance for automobiles.  He shows that these are support the use and ownership of cars and that the “the insurance industry has a vested interest in developing regulations and price points that will not unduly discourage car ownership and use.”  He then rhetorically asks if there any chance of that happening and answers “In the United States of today, not a snowball’s chance in hell.” 

He then goes on to talk about how an insurance system would work on a conventional liability model.  He discusses licensing, regulation, market price differences based on risks and insurance prices being affected by safe practices and good records.  He supports insurance as a part of universal regulation. 

He does not discuss the other models of insurance other than to say that one reader suggested that a surety bond for paying injured parties could replace or supplement insurance.  This is a well thought out article and gives a valuable list of links for Related Reading.

 

Mandatory vs. Topdown Requirements for Gun Insurance

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This is a quick post to remind readers that there are at least two ways to require gun owners to have insurance.

Mandatory Gun Insurance

The regulation or law could simply require every gun owner to have insurance in place on a gun.  This would be simple to mandate but it would require enforcement for every owner with all of the practical and political problems that brings.  There would be no automatic procedure to guarantee complience on transfer (legal or not) of the gun.  The probable result would be a large number of uninsured guns in circulation.

Topdown Gun Insurance

The requirement for insurance could have as part of its terms that an insurer remains responsible for injuries from a gun until responsibility is taken up by another insurer.  In that case, it would not be necessary to have enforcement measures taken for subsiquent owners.  Insurance coverage could remain in place for lost, stolen or diverted firearms greatly expanding the protection of potential injured persons.

 

Petitions on WE the PEOPLE White House website about Guns and Insurance

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There are currently 2 petitions which are being offered and which call for requiring gun insurance. They are not detailed solutions and have not gained much support.  They are:

Sponsor legislation requiring that all gun owners be required to purchase liability insurance from private carriers
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Fine Article on Gun Insurance by Megan McArdle in The Daily Beast

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Megan McArdle has written a long piece in The Daily Beast entitled “Should People Be Forced to Buy Liability Insurance for their Guns?” It is by far the most detailed and thought out analysis of the suggestion that I have seen since Newtown. While I don’t agree with her conclusion that the problems make insurance as a solution unworkable, she gives logical reasons that need to be addressed.

She starts with three reasons that we would want insurance. The first is to Continue reading →

Systems of Insurance applied to guns

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There are many systems of insurance with varying breadths of coverage. The liability insurance that is talked about in the discussion at the moment would only cover a small proportion of the deaths and injuries that are occurring. The systems described below run from something so narrow that provides compensation to only a miniscule proportion those hurt to ones that could be implemented to protect almost all injured persons. Continue reading →

Good Washington Post blog article on guns and insurance

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Brad Plumer has an excellent article on ‘The economics of gun control.’  It discusses the overall cost to society and the ways that requiring regular liability insurance would help.  It’s the best survey article I’ve seen on the subject so far.  You should also look at the paper he points to by Duke’s Philip Cook and Georgetown’s Jens Ludwig. This paper analyzes the costs to society and gives a broad range of possibilities.

To get to a real solution for our society we’ll need to have insurance outside the box and address the two big no arguments–‘it won’t cover criminals’ and ‘it’s unconstitutional.’  All of these problems are solvable and this kind of journalism is where to start.