A friend sent me an article listing the four reasons you’re paying a lot more for your car insurance. I don’t disagree with any of it. However, it reminded me that, when it comes to car insurance, medical costs, and home insurance, the fact that our lives are more complicated, sophisticated, and comfortable needs to be factored in, too.

The article is entitled “4 Reasons Why Car Insurance Has Skyrocketed Since 2021.” According to the article, Fox Business Network shows that car insurance has gone up by roughly 22.2% in a single year, so much so that people are paying twice what they did in 2021. There are four factors, the first of which is essentially “Bideninflation.”

• The costs of parts and repairs
• A lack of trained mechanics. (To which I’ll add that our government is funding “Queer” and “Womyn’s” studies rather than useful skills.)
• Supply chain issues, which have never fully gone away
• Rising numbers of traffic fatalities, which have increased by 10% from 2020 to 2021.

I don’t disagree with any of that. However, I’d like to add a point to the increased cost of parts and repairs. It’s not just inflation. Instead, cars are very different from what they once were. My first car was a rickety, used 1971 Volkswagen fastback. The side-view mirrors were glass in a simple metal frame on a stem that was attached to the car with a couple of screws. I was able to adjust them manually to suit my visual needs. If something happened to one of those mirrors, my guess is that it could be replaced for about $25 in 2024 currency.

Image: Monsanto’s Home of the Future (1957-1967). YouTube screen grab.

My current car, a Mazda, has side-view mirrors that move automatically by controlling a switch in the driver’s side door. Additionally, they are equipped with sensors that light up if anything is in my blind spot. If I put a blinker on when something is in my blind spot, the car will beep at me. If one of them gets damaged, it will cost $1,400 to repair. My car is equipped with all sorts of other safety features (airbags, reinforced sides, crumple zones, etc.) that my old tin can didn’t have. The increased cost to repair all these things is not due to inflation; it’s due to sophistication.

The same thing is true when it comes to medical care. Myriad factors, such as government money, perverse insurance incentives, and pharmaceutical costs, are driving up the price of medical care and perverting the natural marketplace. However, the increased cost of medical care also comes about because it is sophisticated at a level many people take for granted.

In the old days, you paid for the doctor’s time and wisdom, along with the costs of whatever he had in his black bag. Now, that’s the least of it. You pay for equipment that takes X-rays, sonograms, cardiograms, brain scans, bone scans, blood analyses, and more than I can ever name. Paying for enormously expensive infrastructure is part of the cost of modern medicine that is unrelated to inflation and market perversions.

Lastly, while I’m making this point, look at homeowner’s insurance. I was speaking to a couple of California friends, one on the coast and one in the Sierras, both of whom are hanging onto their insurance by the skin of their teeth. The anti-fire remediation they’re being forced to deploy is making their homes look barren as they strip away all the greenery that once softened their house’s outlines. Meanwhile, in Florida, insurers are walking away from the costs associated with houses in hurricane zones.

I’m always happy to blame insurance companies for greed, and I’m sure that’s a factor, but another factor is that homes aren’t what they used to be, either in construction or in content. Other than for the very rich, homes were rather simply built, even into the mid-20th century. They didn’t have fancy windows, sophisticated HVACs, ten electrical outlets to a room, roofs with 20-year warranties, and all the other things we take for granted in houses.

Once inside, a house would have a water closet, with a toilet and a bathtub, a kitchen sink, a stove and an oven, and a refrigerator. The furniture would consist of a kitchen table and chairs, some chairs and maybe a couch in the sitting area, a bed, a chest of drawers and, perhaps, a wardrobe. There would be almost no artwork or books, although, eventually, it would have one radio or one television set. People had few clothes and no personal electronics. And again, this was the case well into the 20th century.

Now think about your home…

There is a lot wrong with our modern American system, whether because of too much government, corruption, greed, etc. But one of the things we’re also experiencing is the effect too many good things, whether it’s the things that enhance our health, our safety, our comfort, or just our enjoyment in life.