Mandatory Insurance - when Will We Stop Paying for "What If" so We Can Pay for "What Is"?

I paid another insurance bill today. This one was for car insurance. The bill seemed exorbitant! It was a good thing I had a few minutes in my schedule to examine the bill. On one of the interior pages of the newly updated policy I found that the computer had included a car that we haven't even owned in two years!

It made me wonder about all the different insurances we pay these days. There is car insurance (mandatory in most states), health insurance (mandatory in several states), life insurance, homeowners insurance, and business liability insurance (mandatory for certain jobs if you own your own business).

The cost for these insurances is soaring. I wonder why we, as a people do not revolt against mandatory insurance. The people who traveled across the ocean to settle this great country and expanded into the west didn't have insurance. They ventured out into the unknown prepared to shoulder whatever hardships came along. When the hardships were great, neighbors pooled their resources and helped each other.

Perhaps that was the way the idea of insurance was born and why we accepted it at first. "If everyone pools together to protect ourselves for that rainy day need, be it for health, transportation or housing, we'll be better off," we thought. Something has gone terribly awry, however! If you have noticed, homeowners insurance has been revoked in states where people may actually encounter a disaster, but is still mandatory if the bank holds a loan on the house. A friend of mine was recently told that she must hire a lawyer to sue her own insurance company to release the money to pay for a car accident. Insurance adjusters no longer work to protect the consumer, but are paid to save the money for the insurance company.

While the majority pays and pays while never needing to collect anything, the insurance companies build the largest buildings in town and pay outrageous salaries to executives to encourage lesser, but well paid agents to sell the greatest number of fear-inspired policies. "What would happen to your family if you died tonight," they ask each healthy, twenty-five-year-old husband. After they heap enough guilt to make each customer part with a substantial amount of money, they also use those funds to lobby congress to make their product mandatory, thus locking us into an endless cycle of filling their bank accounts while draining our own. Isn't there something wrong with this picture? How stupid are we?

Suggestions for a better system would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps my best option is to opt out of as many of these insurances as possible and take my chances. My health will probably be better if I can actually afford food!