Section 3: Procedures, Issues, and Careers

The chief problem with liability insurance is that it seems to have encouraged juries to come up with bigger than ever damage awards; the thinking seems to be that the insurance companies can afford it. But, of course, insurance companies get their money from the premiums that insured people pay, so the result has been big hikes in insurance costs for everyone.

So what's the result? For one thing, professionals like doctors have been seriously affected. In some communities in the United States, doctors simply won't practice certain types of medicine because the insurance costs are too high. Delivering babies is one of these practices. Some schools have discontinued popular sports programs because the risk of injury to players makes insurance costs prohibitive. Even field trips have become problematic for some school jurisdictions. And believe it or not there are even some cases where the fire department and police forces, of some communities, have been shut down because of insurance costs.

So if, say, doctors don't have insurance, they can be wiped out in one malpractice case; but if they do get insurance, the cost can destroy them anyway. Nice!

Yeah, I've heard of doctors who won't even help people at accident scenes because they're afraid of getting sued. People die as a result.

No-Fault Insurance

Professionals and municipalities are not the only ones who need to cover the risk of liability to others by purchasing insurance. Automobile owners, as you know, also must have coverage.

The idea is simple:
Every vehicle on the road has liability insurance, and if damage is done due to a collision, the insurance company covering the party the court decides was responsible pays the amount awarded to the injured party in damages. The result has been that much of the litigation over automobile accidents these days really involves the insurance company taking the other insurance company to court. Of course, given the number of automobile accidents there are, you can well imagine how much time, money, and frustration is involved in these court battles.