Washington should be ashamed, "Mandatory" insurance. (Vancouver, Highland: real estate, 2015)

[rkcarguy]

Last fall, our auto insurance rates went up nearly 20% in many areas on the west side. Insurance companies cited it as these area's being high risk and highly litigious, but offered no other details. I don't have any tickets, a 3 mile commute daily, and no accidents despite the best efforts of many. My monthly auto insurance premium is now 60% of my car payment, and more than I spend on gas.

A family friend of ours owns a small insurance agency, and he was kind enough to take some time to explain the issue to me in more detail. What I was told shocked and disgusted me, and I have no reason to believe any of this is untrue due to the source.

Washington has a "mandatory" auto insurance law, it's been in place for years. When an un-insured driver causes an accident(this could include medical expenses from injuries, property damage, etc, not just the repair costs of the cars), the insured drivers insurance would pay the expenses and then go after that person for the costs. Washington USED to tie that to the un-insured at fault persons license so that they couldn't renew it. It's always bothered me enough that in a mandatory insurance state, that insurance wasn't verified at the time of license renewal, vehicle transfer and licensing, pretty much any "checkpoint" where it would be easy to verify. In the ever liberal eyes of those running this state, that was too burdensome for those un-insured people, so they simply stopped tying that "lien" or whatever it was to the license renewal. Now there is really no recourse to driving without insurance, in this "mandatory insurance state".

In 2015, it was estimated that 8% of drivers had no insurance. Think about how many cars are on our roads, and 1 in 12 has no insurance. This is a huge injustice to the people of the state of Washington and I'm getting tired of paying and paying for a state that needs to step up and deal with it's trash.

Here is the contact page for Washington states insurance commissioner. Feel free to let them know how you feel.

https://www.insurance.wa.gov/ask-us-insurance-question

[StealthRabbit]

My insurance agent (On WA Board) claims 43% of the drivers in WA do not have insurance, > 12% do not have a license.

My WA auto rates were double my previous state (when I arrived 38 yrs ago).

I buy a lot of cars at towing auctions, the ones with valid plates get a higher bid...(in Oregon with 2 yr plates they will sell for over $100! with valid plates, especially if car / truck / motorhome or bus is big enough to live in.(they sometimes sell for as high as $300) *hint: Many cars in WA and OR are also NOT legally registered... (previous owner is liable)

[HeavyLeadBelly]

I'm in between auto's right now and I got some quotes....whoa, I'm in Oly and holy cow is car insurance expensive! I think I'll just rent auto's for now until I've saved enough to move out of this state.

[leastprime]

What?? Washington doesn't have an mandatory "uninsured motorist protection"?
Oregon does
I tried to get all my emoji together, but most of them are out cruising without a license and insurance is not available since they are mostly illegal Japanese in the US.

[texasdiver]

I suspect one would need to contact the legislature not the insurance commissioner.

When I lived in Texas we had to provide proof of insurance when renewing our car tags. But honestly I'm not sure they did anything more than make certain that you had current insurance cards which I suspect anyone could easily forge with a laser printer. I don't think they actually verified coverage by contacting the insurance company. And even if they did, what prevents someone from getting insurance for a day when they renewed their tabs then cancelling it after that? So simply requiring proof of insurance at time of renewal isn't necessarily going to prevent fraud.

My guess? Part of the issue may be all the little private storefront auto tab renewal shops that are all over WA. Sometime in the past the state decided to privatize the auto tab business and I'm guessing all those little shops have some pull with the state and resist getting caught up in insurance verification stuff because it would slow down their businesses and force them to deal with upset customers.

The solution in my mind? Require all insurance companies that operate in this state to participate in some sort of state-wide insurance coverage database. The state would have to create a master database of all registered autos (which they have) and cross reference that against a database of all insurance policies (which they don't have). Then any police officer when pulling up the registration information for a vehicle could see the insurance policy information. But that would require a alot of expensive software changes and such. I've worked with big databases before and even small changes to fields can be very complicated and expensive to implement.

In any event, I doubt anything is going to change any time soon. Unless one of the leaders in the state legislature gets into an accident with an uninsured driver and gets a burr under their saddle about the issue.

[Diana Holbrook]

Been here most of my life and have not been insured elsewhere... Currently $92 a month for our two trucks and a horse trailer, full coverage, How does that compare with what it would cost in other states? Our main truck - 2004 Silverado.. is our declared daily driver for our real estate business, so fairly high mileage. The other truck is nearly a classic... 1987 Silverado. We pay full coverage on both.

We've had very few claims, been with Pemco over 25 years.

[Thom52]

our insurance rates dropped significantly when we moved from WA to OR.
But then so did the traffic density.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

Been here most of my life and have not been insured elsewhere... Currently $92 a month for our two trucks and a horse trailer, full coverage, How does that compare with what it would cost in other states? Our main truck - 2004 Silverado.. is our declared daily driver for our real estate business, so fairly high mileage. The other truck is nearly a classic... 1987 Silverado. We pay full coverage on both.

We've had very few claims, been with Pemco over 25 years.

We pay about $900 every 6 months for full coverage on a 2014 Highlander and 2016 Prius through Costco Ameriprise. For cars garaged in the Vancouver area. So that's what? $150/month? That is about the same as we were paying in Texas 2 years ago. It's bundled with our house coverage. I haven't shopped around recently to see if there are any better deals. We've also never made a claim in 10 years and have clean driving records.

[rantiquity]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

Last fall, our auto insurance rates went up nearly 20% in many areas on the west side. Insurance companies cited it as these area's being high risk and highly litigious, but offered no other details. I don't have any tickets, a 3 mile commute daily, and no accidents despite the best efforts of many. My monthly auto insurance premium is now 60% of my car payment, and more than I spend on gas.

A family friend of ours owns a small insurance agency, and he was kind enough to take some time to explain the issue to me in more detail. What I was told shocked and disgusted me, and I have no reason to believe any of this is untrue due to the source.

Washington has a "mandatory" auto insurance law, it's been in place for years. When an un-insured driver causes an accident(this could include medical expenses from injuries, property damage, etc, not just the repair costs of the cars), the insured drivers insurance would pay the expenses and then go after that person for the costs. Washington USED to tie that to the un-insured at fault persons license so that they couldn't renew it. It's always bothered me enough that in a mandatory insurance state, that insurance wasn't verified at the time of license renewal, vehicle transfer and licensing, pretty much any "checkpoint" where it would be easy to verify. In the ever liberal eyes of those running this state, that was too burdensome for those un-insured people, so they simply stopped tying that "lien" or whatever it was to the license renewal. Now there is really no recourse to driving without insurance, in this "mandatory insurance state".

In 2015, it was estimated that 8% of drivers had no insurance. Think about how many cars are on our roads, and 1 in 12 has no insurance. This is a huge injustice to the people of the state of Washington and I'm getting tired of paying and paying for a state that needs to step up and deal with it's trash.

Here is the contact page for Washington states insurance commissioner. Feel free to let them know how you feel.

https://www.insurance.wa.gov/ask-us-insurance-question

I agree, a lot of those uninsured drivers are illegal aliens who the state and democrats seem to be okay with them driving and driving up insurance cost.

Mandatory auto insurance protects from the uninsured who drive around waiting for an accident to happen without consequence and the state needs to enforce this mandatory insurance law. Maybe by having to show proof of auto insurance when an individual gets/renews a drivers license.

[Diana Holbrook]

Originally Posted by rantiquity

Maybe by having to show proof of auto insurance when an individual gets/renews a drivers license.

You don't have to own a car to have a license.