May 28, 2020
As the Soviet Union ultimately learned the hard way, price controls are a guaranteed way to prolong shortages. It has taken a few years, but there are promising signs California lawmakers may finally be ready to learn the same lesson. …
April 15, 2020
You may have missed it, as some bigger events have been dominating the headlines in recent weeks, but the West Virginia Legislature and Maryland General Assembly both recently adjourned after having considered bills (SB 659 and SB 17, respectively) that …
April 9, 2020
As is by now obvious to everyone, Americans are driving less these days amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the country, schools and businesses are shut down. Many areas have curfews and stay-at-home orders that ask citizens to limit any nonessential …
March 26, 2020
Over the eight years of our existence, the R Street Institute has offered critiques of government-backed entities that provide insurance or reinsurance for flood, crop, windstorm, earthquake, auto, workers’ comp, nuclear energy liability and terrorism. We have warned that such …
March 24, 2020
The COVID-19 outbreak is expected to hit the workers’ compensation insurance market hard. After a long stretch of declining costs that saw rates fall nationwide from 2015 to 2019, claims for workers infected by the virus while on the job …
March 22, 2020
Californians statewide are huddled at home under a “shelter-in-place” order handed down March 20 by Gov. Gavin Newsom to stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Unfortunately, nature does not take a break for pandemics. California also remains under wildfire …
January 24, 2020
Though tensions were high coming in, President Donald Trump left the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with at least a temporary truce on one of his latest threatened tariff fights. Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly came to …
December 17, 2019
There has been much talk in recent years about the need to “drain the swamp” in Washington and bring public accountability to a federal government mired in self-dealing and special interests. But Congress this week will almost certainly approve a …
December 4, 2019
The 2019 edition of the R Street Institute’s annual Insurance Regulation Report Card is out and, for the second year in a row, Louisiana has the ignominious distinction of finishing dead last. By our lights, the Pelican State has the …
October 27, 2019
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has started the process to produce a review guide for predictive models that could guide how state insurance departments oversee insurers use of so-called “big data.” But reports from the field suggest that, even …