Huh? The Heartland Institute, a conservative libertarian think tank ranked Vermont first in their fifty state Property and Casualty Insurance Report Card 2011(PDF). Rating criteria included Politicization (States were docked points if candidates for office made insurance regulation a campaign issue), Regularity clarity, Rate regulation (docked if the state protected high risk customers from high rates), Residual markets, Market concentration, Credit scoring and territorial rating.
The best state, Vermont, scored 24 of a maximum possible score of 35. It lost one point for the size of its residual auto markets and10 points for having price regulations that are good (“high flexibility”) but not as good as Illinois’ no-file system.
The top five were: Vermont (A+).Ohio (A+).Illinois (A).Maine (A).and Wisconsin (B+).
The worst states were Massachusetts (D-) Hawaii (F), California (F), Texas (F), and Florida(F).
And yes Vermont’s “A+” is from that Heartland Institute. The rightwing “research organization” that recently sponsored billboards comparing climate change scientists and advocates to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, noted murderer Charles Manson and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
This might be kind of a bothersome honor, ignore it , cheer it or double check the way Vermont regulates the industry? Guess bragging rights must be considered sufficient as no mention was made of prizes or trophy.
… the Heartland Institute’s insurance arm recently separated from Heartland, and announced it would no longer deny or refute climate change. See, the insurance industry has already come to see climate change as a reality in their long-term risk analyses, and the Heartland insurance project had to separate itself from the parent organization in order to retain any credibility whatsoever with its potential clientele.
Link to a writeup by Dave Weigel.
Now, the study that gave Vermont such a positive grade occurred before the split, but it’s not difficult to infer that the insurance research arm may have been an honest broker even while operating within Heartland. This report, in any case, seems to be the straight stuff. Inconvenient for the free-market blatherers at the Ethan Allen Institute, and I bet Rob Roper has never talked about this on his EAI-funded radio show.