By Tom Walsh, Detroit Free Press

Dec. 20–Looking for a job?

How about something in the insurance industry? Just go to a brand new Web site, http://OhioMeansInsuranceJobs.com, for free access to nearly 100,000 employment opportunities in Ohio that you can search by job title, keyword, pay range and location.

Whoa. What’s being done in Michigan, you ask, to attract and retain insurance companies and jobs?

Sadly, in a batch of so-called auto insurance reform bills kicking around Lansing, some politicians are playing the tired old game of demonizing insurance companies as villains out to gouge the people in pursuit of nasty profits. The bills propose new layers of regulatory red tape and further government intrusion into rate-setting, hardly the message Michigan should be sending to foster new business and job creation.

Unlimited medical benefits

Meanwhile, the bills would do nothing about the elephant in the room — the fact that Michigan is the ONLY state in the union that mandates unlimited lifetime medical benefits to people injured in car accidents.

Higher claims costs for insurers mean higher car insurance premiums for you and me. Simple as that.

Michigan’s auto insurance rates are the 11th highest among the 50 states, averaging $928 per policyholder in 2007, or 16.7% more than the $793 national average. Insurance industry studies indicate that Michigan premiums could drop between 15% and 45% if consumers were given a choice — as they are in the other 49 states — about how much medical coverage to purchase. Why not go ahead and offer the choice?

Cafeteria-style choice

Tom Wilson, president and CEO of Chicago-based Allstate Corp., told me recently that consumers are becoming more and more savvy about managing their own coverage choices.

That’s why Wilson, a St. Clair Shores native and University of Michigan grad, launched Allstate’s “Your Choice Auto” program in 2006, offering cafeteria-style coverage packages.

Auto insurance in Michigan, Wilson said, “is more expensive than it needs to be” because the mandate of unlimited medical benefits “doesn’t put economic discipline in the system.”

Wilson and other insurers understand that auto insurance, a product drivers are required by law to purchase, will always be a highly regulated industry. All parties agree on the need to reduce the number of uninsured motorists and make more affordable coverage available to low-income drivers.

That said, it’s critical that the auto insurance reform debate, which could become campaign fodder in the 2010 election, be conducted in a sober, inclusive manner that doesn’t give jobs-providing companies more reason to flee Michigan.

“Anything that’s viewed by the industry as detrimental, I’d be concerned about,” said Greg Main, head of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

As he should be.

Ohio would clearly be happy to poach some of Michigan’s insurance companies and jobs.

Contact TOM WALSH: 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com

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