Study: Insurers Overcharging
“U.S. insurance companies systematically overcharge customers and underpay home and auto claims to pad their already-fat bottom lines, a consumer group said Thursday. The Consumer Federation of America’s insurance director, J. Robert Hunter, said insurers have enjoyed robust profits and contained losses largely by ‘methodically overcharging consumers, cutting back on coverage, underpaying claims and getting taxpayers to pick up some of the tab for risks the insurers should cover.’ Hunter’s comments came with the release of a study by Consumer Federation, Consumers Union and several other consumer organizations that said the industry’s overcharges reached an average of $870 per U.S. household during the past four years.”
Marcy Gordon, Associated Press, 1-11-08