LANSING – Pointing to an editorial in today's edition of the Detroit Free Press which stated that there were nearly 61,000 car-deer crashes in Michigan last year, State Representative Bettie Cook Scott (D-Detroit) reiterated her stance that urban Detroiters should not be punished with unfairly high insurance premiums because of where they live.
"It's time for a reality check – despite what insurance companies say, claims occur in every corner of Michigan, not just in urban areas," Scott said. "When setting an automobile insurance rate, a person's driving record is the best variable to use – not their place of residence."
According to the editorial, 60,875 deer-related crashes occurred in Michigan in 2006. Kent County saw the most crashes with 2,208. Other counties with a high number of crashes were Oakland with 1,866, Ingham with 1,530, Calhoun with 1,817 and Jackson with 2,017. The crashes cause at least $130 million every year in damages, according to the editorial.
The editorial was printed just one day after the House Insurance Committee received written testimony from Peter Kuhnmuench of the Insurance Institute of Michigan, who said that "insurance premiums paid by urban motorists are neither arbitrary nor discriminatory. They are a true reflection of insurance costs. The frequency and severity of insurance claims are generally higher in urban areas. So premiums must be higher."
"This is the kind of attitude that I'm working to change," Scott said. "In order to put our communities back on the right track, we need economic investment. That's hard to do when your residents are paying obscene amounts for their insurance. It's time that we made the insurance industry play by the rules, and I pledge to continue working to make sure that all Michigan residents have access to fair insurance rates."
As part of her effort to fight territorial auto insurance pricing, Scott has introduced HB 5250, which would prohibit auto insurance companies from setting prices on the basis of territories that subdivide the state into more than 20 zones.