Insuring what's fair.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff

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WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, MY FATHER, A DISILLUSIONED PHYSICIAN WHO didn't recommend that I follow in his footsteps professionally, tried to introduce me to professionals who were friends and who were not doctors in hopes I would find a better calling.

He took me to see his stockbroker. He had me visit an architect. I called on more than a few bankers. Curiously, he never even mentioned "insurance" as a career choice even though he had golfing buddies who were in the insurance game.

When I was in college, my friends and I would sit around a lot and discuss what it was we were planning to do when--or if--we mastered our studies, and while many, many ideas came up--doctor, lawyer, journalist, photographer, banker, musician--not one of us ever mentioned "insurance."

As it turned out, many of these people actually went into insurance as a career, but not one of them had planned it that way. Selling insurance isn't something you aspire to, it's a fall-back position when you've got rent to pay or mouths to feed. Indeed, my first insurance agent quit the "profession" at age 30 to write children's books. I don't know if he ever succeeded, but I do know that in the ensuing 25 years he has become something of a legend among his former insurance-company colleagues for acting out his ambitions.

Insurance salesmen sell insurance, but they also dream--often, of stronger stuff; every insurance company on earth could be called the Walter Mitty Agency.

I point all this out because I have heard a ton of people lately upset with what is going on in the insurance world. The news has been full of new schemes by insurance companies to raise rates and revenues, and many of those ideas raise hackles as well. I am, frankly, horrified that I am paying so much, and so much more all the time, to an industry populated by people who would much rather be doing something--anything!--else for a living.

Many insurance companies offering auto, life and home policies are, for instance, doing credit checks on policy holders and potential customers, and charging people with lower credit ratings higher rates--whether they have a history of slow payment or frequent claims or not. The insurance companies hold out some actuarial connection between a credit rating and claims, but the truth of the matter is that they are charging...