The talk about insurance rates and seatbelts or helmets is mostly anecdotal. I was a sales rep for 25 years for a national insurance company focusing on personal auto, homes, etc. Rate consideration was often based on, do we want more or less business in this state or county? That was based, in part on jury awards in that county. Similarly when a new company moved into Property and Casualty (e.g. Metropolitan in the 80's) they had very low rates to build business because they needed a certain level of cash flow to support basic operations, back room, claims, etc. You hear about diversifying your investment portfolio? Insurance companies do the same thing by adjusting rates from state or county to other states. The Insurance Commissions approve rates, but their job is to insure that companies have adequate reserves to pay claims. They don't really care so much about market share or geographic diversity. Insurance companies also look at juries. Juries in Hillsboro County generally don't look favorably on (fake?) Slip and fall claims, so those cases will go to court where in another jurisdiction, they might just get settled for $5000. The ambulance chasers know this and migrate to where the money is. And you think, listening to the TV commercials, that insurance companies have thousands of lawyers? In many areas, they hire local law firms. When you call one, they say "Sorry; X insurer is a client, we can't take your case as it is a conflict of interest". Insurance rates are much more com plex than how many people wear seat belts.
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