Actually, while not discounting the very real cost of "trash trippers"
and those who see the legal system as a lottery reward for their own
stupidity...there is another factor to consider.

The underwriters invest the premiums they recieve. When the returns on
that investment perform sub-par, they need to increase premiums to make
up for the shortfall in investment income. In effect, your premium is
actually subsidized through investment, and when the subsidy comes up
short, the policyholder pays. This sort of effect has been felt
throughout the healthcare malpractice-liability industry as well. Its
true that there are lots of judgements for "**** happens" rather than
negligence, but you can also notice that premiums take a sharp hike when
the economy (and investments) is (are) down.

That being said, be thankful they didnt jack your rates in relation to
an actual claim!!.

Dave

Jay Honeck wrote:
That's very true. My premiums only went down about 15% after my first
year of ownership, but the big difference was having my pick of insurers
rather than being limited to one or two who were willing to write the
risk.


That's true with many types of insurance.

Hotel/motel insurance, for example, is seen as a very high risk endeavor.
As a result, there are just two major players left in the business.

Not surprisingly, they just jacked us $900 per year (which is about what we
had been paying per month) -- and I have no recourse but to suck it up and
pay it. Mind you, we've never had a claim of any kind -- they just hiked us
because, well, because they could.

Which is why I hate product liability and ambulance chasing attorneys almost
beyond measure. I'm sure some trailer trash "tripped" and fell at a hotel
last year, and the *******s sued the poor saps for $20 million -- and now we
ALL have to pay for it.

I really can't believe that any pilot in their right mind would want a
product liability attorney a heartbeat away from the presidency. Has
everyone forgotten that these are the same a**holes that almost eliminated
aircraft manufacturing in this country?