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ABATE members and friends:
The ABATE of Wisconsin Board of Directors, upon recommendation of the Legislative Committee, voted unanimously to oppose AB4 and SB7, the auto insurance bills that would return Wisconsin’s insurance law back to what it was prior to 2009. In fact, the minimum limits would go back to what they were in 1982.
In brief summary:
· reduce minimum coverage
· restore reducing clauses
· eliminate stacking provisions
· retain the mandatory requirement for insurance.
· 30 day reporting requirement on phantom vehicle crashes
Anyone that did not have insurance in the past will be treated as a “risk” under these bills and could pay higher premium rates.
Without getting into all the intricacies of this legislation, I submit that this is very detrimental to consumers and especially seriously injured bikers. Some say I oppose this bill because I work for a personal injury attorney. I say it’s because I work for an injury law firm that probably represents more injured bikers than any firm in the state and I know what I’m talking about. As founder of ABATE of Wisconsin, I’ve always worked for the good of motorcyclists and I can say without reservation that these bills benefit nobody except the insurance industry.
Anyone who has experienced a serious motor vehicle crash due to the negligence of another will most certainly agree that even your own insurance company takes an adversarial position when you submit a claim. Furthermore, the $25 / $50 / $10 minimums are wholly inadequate to compensate you for serious injury. Worse yet, even if you did the responsible thing and insured yourself and your family with as much insurance as you could afford, you will be penalized by the insurance company’s ability to reduce your underinsured compensation by what you collect from the defendant driver’s policy. If the other driver carried more insurance than your UIM limit, even if that coverage was less than your damages, you collect nothing (as in zero) from your underinsured coverage. Think about what could happen if you were seriously injured through the fault of another and you had to trust the insurance company to take care of you. You could be forced into bankruptcy because of another’s negligence.
Atty. Jason Abraham of Hupy and Abraham S.C. speaking at a press conference in the Senate Chamber discusses AB 4 with the media on January 19, 2011.
Friends, this is bad legislation and we need to continue to speak out against it. ABATE took a position of opposition on these bills and we need to continue to oppose them. I disagree that we are wasting our time and political capitol by continuing to oppose these bills. It’s also been stated that not all of our membership may oppose AB4 and SB7. The Board of Directors voted to oppose this, so as an organization we should accept that decision. Because not every member is in agreement with a position is hardly a reason to abandon that decision. Are we to believe that our members agree on everything in ABATE? I know there are differing opinions on helmets, alcohol awareness, changing the state constitution to protect safety funds, etc. But, as an organization, we accept the decisions our Board of Directors make.
I urge every member to call their Assembly person and Senator and ask them to vote against passage of AB4 and SB7. If you’ve already called, call again to remind them that you have not changed your view on the devastating affect this legislation will have on seriously injured people.
District One Director, John Reblin had this to say about the auto insurance bill, AB4, on his FaceBook page:
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Hopefully you have called or written to your representatives asking them not to pass AB4, SB7 as written. This bill will be bad and expensive for WI. bikers. All people who use the road need to carry the most insurance they can afford, unfortunately along with the proposed lowered minimum requirements to protect ourselves in case of an crash that’s probably not our fault, we will not be able to “stack” the other persons insurance coverages to increase the amount to pay our medical bills and living expenses. Medical costs are through the roof and the new minimums will be too low to provide care, turning us into the public burden. To all the people whose insurance went up drastically, perhaps it was because you were under insured, and if not, do you think the cost of the insurance will go back to the previous levels because of the removal of stacking? |
If any legislator suggests that bikers should have to pay more for insurance or pay into some catastrophic fund, I say that’s when we flex our political capitol again. We have always been an organization that strived to do good for the motorcyclists of our state and we certainly never worried about “what might happen” down the road if we support or oppose something. We need to stand strong behind our convictions and the decisions our Board makes or we will lose our integrity.
As the MRF suggested with its 95/5 rule, 95% of our activities should support our mission. The mission of ABTE of Wisconsin is to represent the interests of the motorcyclists of Wisconsin and AB4 and SB7 are detrimental to those interests.
Tony “Pan” Sanfelipo
Founder, ABATE of Wisconsin
Sturgis Freedom Fighter Hall of Fame, 2002