[Between the Lines]

because it keeps private insurers in the business of insuring private individuals, just as auto insurers are private.

Before requiring insurance for all drivers, Mass had 53 auto insurers in the state. Now there are only 18.

-snip-

But the total amount of capital currently backing up Massachusetts’ homeowners insurance is just $32 billion.

How sickly is that?

No other state in New England is in this condition.

Connecticut has twice as much capital, per dollar of coverage, as Massachusetts has. Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island: more than six times as much.

Vermont has 50 percent more capital available, to back up one-tenth of the risk.

Why is our insurance market in such bad shape?

There are only two functioning examples of socialism left in the Western Hemisphere: Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and the Massachusetts car insurance “market.”

It’s a blizzard of regulations, price caps and crazy cross-subsidies. The net result is that most of the big insurance companies have fled. AllState isn’t here. State Farm isn’t. GEICO isn’t.

Sixteen years ago we had 53 insurance companies writing auto insurance in the state. Now we have 18.

And if they’re not writing auto insurance policies, it doesn’t make much economic sense for them to come here just to write homeowners insurance.

The net result is that most homeowners policies are written by local companies. They’re smaller, and their risks are more concentrated geographically.

-/snip-

Look for similar results from this new health insurance requirement.

[Final Authority]

The problem with the Massachusetts system of insuring autos extends into the home insurance business, as you probably know. If a company isn't willing to write auto they can't write homeowners.

The only way companies can participate is if they are willing to be regulated.

We must learn here and give credit where credit is due. Mitt Romney is the first governor in many years to open up the auto insurance industry, and hence the homeowners insurance industry to competition so companies like GEICO can enter the market. It is not Mitt who is holding up the industry, it the super majority of Democrat legislators who are, and well paid at that, by the insurance lobbyists.