Insurance companies on the whole are the only ones getting rich in this game
Well, when your premiums go up it is only natural to blame the insurance companies. But can one really state that indeed they are making money? It is impossible to say that your insurance carrier is making money on underwriting divers professional liability insurance, but it is a fact that the market for all professional liability coverages (i.e. doctors, lawyers, etc). has been bleeding money for the last few years for those who insure such risks.
Being that diver professional liability insurance is a subset of a larger portfolio of professional liability risks, and that larger portfolio has been "under water" (sorry for the pun):mean:
for quite a while, ALL professionals will be paying more to get the insurance industry back to making money on this line of business.
So who is getting rich on those premiums you pay? The lawyers.
The cost of insurance (especially professional liability) has gone up significantly due to the litigation-friendly legal environment in the U. S. Got a problem? See you in court. Like it or not, your ability to go to the yellow pages and get a lawyer to sue sombody for just about anything is part of our culture, and those costs are reflected in your insurance premiums.
If you lived in Europe or even Canada, your costs would be much lower, since the legal system is not so litigation-oriented.
To be fair, the sole cause of higher premiums is not just the legal system, but also the large losses caused by the meltdown of world financial markets, as well as the terroist attacks on 9-11; both of which combined have taken out over $ 150 Billion of capital from the insurance industry over the past 18 months. Less capital=higher prices, simply stated. (I could go on about the cost of asbestos litigation, which has driven some insurance companies out of business all together) but I think I have made my point).
At the end of the day, we are all having to pay for other losses out there, and prices will go up until the insurance companies get to to point of making to much money, which will introduce more capital into the industry, thereby driving down prices (someday soon? probably not for a couple of years at least).
Of course I am not defending the behavior of the insurance industry, but just wanting to shed light on the costs of insurance going up for everyone.
Scubamax