June 2010
1 post
Texas Needs a "No Pay, No Play" Law for Uninsured...
Philip W. Barnes, PhD -
What to do about uninsured drivers has long been a focus of public policy in Texas. Until 1981, state law implicitly recognized that liability insurance was meant to protect a person’s assets, not to guarantee that a person who damaged another while driving a car would be “financially responsible.” If a person had no assets to protect, the logical decision for that person...
May 2010
2 posts
CHILD SAFETY: HOW FAR WE HAVE COME IN 50 YEARS!
Philip W. Barnes, PhD
The chances of dying in an automobile accident in 1953 was four times greater than in 2003, based on fatalities per mile driven in the United States. Better roads and medical care along with tougher drunk-driving laws have been attributed to some of this difference. But there was also considerable improvement in vehicle safety features over the 50-year period. Significant...
April 2010
6 posts
We Can Reduce Hurricane Losses by Improved...
Philip W. Barnes, PhD
Texas is approaching the annual hurricane season. So it is timely to look back and see what we have learned from the last major hurricane to hit the Texas coast.
When Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast on September 13, 2008, it caused damage of historic proportions. In the United States, Ike was blamed for at least 195 deaths, and many more are still missing. Due to its...
The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association: The...
Philip W. Barnes, PhD
Texas law should be changed to require the board of directors of TWIA to file for approval the rate recommended by its actuaries; this is a moral obligation the board owes its customers, its members, and to the Commissioner of Insurance.
The item published in this space last week focused on the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) and the continuing subsidies its...
TWIA: CONTINUED SUBSIDIES FOR COASTAL PROPERTY...
Philip W. Barnes, PhD
Most Texans are unaware of the subsidy they provide for property owners along the Texas coast whose property is insured by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA). As the article below suggests, TWIA has never had adequate rates to cover its losses, as demonstrated by the assessments required to pay claims as a result of Hurricanes Dolly and Ike in 2008. The...
Rules Change For Young Drivers
Philip W. Barnes, PhD
In 2009, the Texas Legislature passed and the governor signed into law new requirements that young drivers must meet in order to obtain a driver’s license. As always with requirements of this kind, the public policy objective is to increase the probability that young people will be safer drivers than they might otherwise have been.
Applicants for a driver’s...
The Need for a National Health Service
Philip W. Barnes, PhD
The Great Debate in our country over the new health care reform law continues unabated. And it is interesting to note that both the thoughtful advocates for the new law and its some of its critics are right, at least in part. Clearly, the advocates are correct: the new law when fully implemented will be a dramatic and improvement over the current costly and inefficient...