Letters to the editor
Force insurance firms to mediate disputes
There ought to be a law. have you tried dealing with an auto insurance company lately regarding a loss? they expeditiously take information, even over the Internet, and dispatch an adjuster within 24 hours. a fellow shows up all smiles, snaps a few photos on his handy cell phone then leaves in a rush to turn in his report.
The next day, you receive a nice warm phone call from the claims representative, gushing with concern about your loss. then they drop the bomb — an offer to settle all claims for about half the value of your auto. No rental is offered, but they will send a tow truck. you have the responsibility of signing the title and sending it to them. Once they have confirmed that the auto is at the salvage yard and have received the title, they will forward the check for your auto.
When you try to talk with them about how they determined the value of the vehicle, they say imperiously that the value is based on “comparables.” Where such comparables come from is somewhat of a mystery, but I was informed that they ranged out some 200 miles to try to find the exact vehicle somewhere on the market. I suspect that the vehicles they found, if any actually exist, are lodged at a salvage yard somewhere.
If you object to the value, all that really happens is that you are passed from one claim representative to another over a period of several days, each promising that they will re-research the comparables. Each successive call renders the same value.
It is fruitless to suggest that you will engage an attorney, even though such is an alternative. it is an alternative only if you have some form of transportation to get you by for the next nine months to a year. What is needed is a quick and inexpensive forum to turn to, such as mediation. but it takes two to agree to mediation and insurance companies are uninterested. So give us a law that compels auto insurance companies to go to mediation if there is a disagreement on a claim.
Ron Hignight
It is time for genuine health care reform
Too many doctors in this town won’t even take the insurance I am fortunate to have because insurance companies make it so hard to collect payment, or the payment that does finally come is so small.
Nothing will rein in the arrogant reign of big insurance and big pharma unless we have a single-payer plan as an option. The insurance companies can scramble for the inevitable gaps in that coverage instead of having the easy pickings of an unprotected citizenry.
To be genuine reform, Congress must forward a real plan — a single-payer plan — now. Too many people do not have access to affordable insurance, and Medicare does work. my adult children cannot afford insurance now. my mother is being served very well by Medicare and a secondary insurance company. Why shouldn’t everyone in this great country have this insurance coverage?
Small businesses can’t afford to offer insurance to their employees, and even big businesses like the car manufacturers are being overburdened by skyrocketing insurance costs. it is time for our representatives to do something for the real people of this country instead of the corporate “people” of the insurance industry for a change.
Kathryn dePoo
Every training sortie is critical to readiness
Frequent letter writer Reese Palley’s most recent submission asked that the Navy consider not flying one training sortie a day to save energy. Mr. Palley is way off base. No pun intended.
The Key West Naval Air Station is one of our military’s finest air combat training facilities in the world due to good weather and the availability of nearby supersonic training areas.
Maintaining proficiency and currency for pilots and air crew in a fourth-generation fighter such as the F/A-18, F-16 or F-15 is difficult today due to large reductions in available flying training hours. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have all invested in simulators to help pilots and air crew achieve and stay at mission-ready levels, but simulators can only augment the real thing. Mission ready means these folks must have the skills to successfully bring U.S. air dominance quickly to any area of the world.
Air-to-air combat is a tough business that is quite unforgiving of mistakes. The units that deploy to Key West are here to generate training sorties, and military aircraft maintainers have an equally tough job doing that. Under-manning, long hours and parts shortages away from home bases are just some of the difficulties they deal with while trying to bring enough jets up online several times each day to meet training goals. The notion of not flying one available training sortie is as unthinkable to them as it is to me.
James Grant