Maryland House Democrats introduced a controversial gun safety bill requiring gun owners to forfeit their ability to wear or carry without firearm liability insurance.
Introduced by Del. Terri Hill, D-Howard County, the legislation would prohibit the “wear or carry” of a gun anywhere in the state unless the individual has obtained a liability insurance policy of at least $300,000.
"A person may not wear or carry a firearm unless the person has obtained and it covered by liability insurance issued by an insurer authorized to do business in the State under the Insurance Article to cover claims for property damage, bodily injury, or death arising from an accident resulting from the person’s use or storage of a firearm or up to $300,000 for damages arising from the same incident, in addition to interest and costs,” the proposed Maryland legislation reads.
That’s certainly what I’ve been told. The statistics look a little sketchy to me on that front, but I’m not a mathematician and insurance companies will surely do a better analysis than anyone on this thread.
The only sure thing is that insurance companies will try to make as much money off this as possible, especially if it becomes required by law to have.
That’s where competition is important. Get a bunch of insurers in the market and the profits they leech will be minimal. But health insurance is a fucking debacle over profits, so I definitely hear your concern.
Ask Floridians looking for flood or even just normal home insurance how competition is working for them.
The problem there is insuring housing isn’t financially viable because climate change has made it too costly to mass-build houses as often as they are destroyed. That’s not really similar to the gun violence marketplace.
The idea her is if folks can persuade insurance companies that they are stable and responsible enough, insurance for them will be cheap. Meanwhile folks with domestic violence records or violent felonies would be priced out of having a gun or at least have the ability to bear the financial burden if something goes wrong. This is by no means a great solution, but 2A absolutists have the supreme court and the law is essentially that reasonable regulation isn’t possible.
Until that changes, I’ll accept a market solution.
Don’t some states have laws about profitability caps on insurance?
There were stories of some insurance companies refunding policy holders during COVID due to excess profits.