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Show Insurance: a burden "After the 1983 Civil Rights Act, the number of personal suits against government went up." JAILS HAVE insurance problems prob-lems because prisoners have certain cer-tain rights and they can sue if those rights are violated. The act of employing em-ploying people even carries risk because be-cause employees who are terminated termin-ated can sue claiming improper termination. ( Burden f Ihsu ran ce U6ATUE& By CHERIE HUBER Sharing the Risks Insurance is a financial arrangement arrange-ment under which one party in return re-turn for a set dollar amount called a premium, agrees to compensate another person for certain speci; fled losses, called the risk. The contract is called the policy. Insurance Insur-ance is one way of sharing the risks of life and business. THE CONCEPT of insurance is a sound, longstanding one. It has been around since the times of the Babylonians when crops were insured. in-sured. The Greeks and the Romans also used insurance to protect goods sent by ship. The more perilous peri-lous the journey was considered to be, the higher the insurance costs. Here in the United States, the first known insurance office opened in Philadelphia in 1721. Insurance In-surance has progressed from the protection of goods and property to the more complex liability insurance insur-ance that protects an individual from losses he may suffer due to injury he may do to others. IN THE recent past, insurance has been easily obtainable at moderate mod-erate cost. Now rising expenses to the insurance companies are forcing forc-ing the rates upward to the point - that premiums double and triple. . At the same time, insurance has become part of the American way of life. It is impossible to buy a house or operate a vehicle without some types of insurance. Many government entities, however, are finding themselves without coverage cover-age in some areas. Premiums have not only gone up but insurance companies are canceling or refusing refus-ing to renew policies. The Burden of Serving - A crucial area of coverage in government is liability insurance. WITHOUT liability insurance each member of a governing board such as the county commissioners or the Board of Directors of the Bountiful Water Subconservancy District could be held responsible for injury that occurs as a result of a decision made by the board. Members of boards must be protected pro-tected by liability insurance if the public hopes to have competent people fill the positions. "TO BE a public servant and risk your own life and well being is one thing. It is asking too much to put your family in jeopardy also" says Davis County Commissioner Harry Har-ry Gerlach. He explained that all areas of government are being affected by changes in insurance premiums. if not totally impossible to find. The insurance industry says that it is suffering unmanageable losses due to the judicial system allowing unprecedented awards in all types of cases. Consumers say that the cost of insurance coverage is putting put-ting them out of business, if in fact insurance is available to all. WE ARE living in a time when the number of lawsuits brought against public agencies is staggering stagger-ing and court decisions often favor the plaintiff. Juries sometimes seem to believe that government is separate from society rather than an integral part of it. "Courts need to put lids on awards. The taxpayer does not realize that he is being Santa Claus ' with the mind-boggling amounts of money awarded in law suits," said Com. Gerlach. DAVIS COUNTY still has insurance insur-ance coverage but the premiums have doubled in the past year. Thus far the county has been able to afford the increased cost. The South Davis Ambulance Service has not been as fortunate. Because of the much higher cost of insurance on the ambulances, that service plans to sell one of the ambulances. No longer will there be an ambulance housed in Farm-ington. Farm-ington. Instead the calls will be answered from Bountiful. EVEN WITH that, after paying insurance the service will not have available matching funds necessary neces-sary to use for Emergency Medical Services grants from the state. Bountiful Police Department discovered that it made sense to not insure the patrol cars for damage. dam-age. New premiums would have amounted to the price of two new patrol cars a year. IN OTHER cases, cities who have found themselves without insurance in-surance have banded together to self-insure. The cities of Ogden, West Valley, Jordan and Orem have done that. In effect the cities are pooling the premiums they would have paid if they could have found insurance. Losses would come out of that fund. Losses beyond that amount will be shared by the cities. In the mean time, Utah legislators legisla-tors have passed a bill that they feel is the first step toward insurance reforms. The bill limits liability of any entity to only its share of the blame. INSURANCE experts say that the next crisis will be in the personal person-al insurance market. Individuals will see their premiums start to rise next year. Com. Harold Tippetts added, "One of the greatest changes is in the attitude on personal rights and liberty. Even though a property owner protects against trespassers, trespas-sers, even a trespasser who enters a property to commit a crime can sue the property owner for whatever whatev-er injuries he sustains on the property prop-erty while committing the crime. The pendulum has swung to an extreme." ex-treme." IT IS only 18 months since the insurance market began its turn and government, businesses and individuals are beginning to feel the pinch. Premiums have skyrocket, many kinds of coverage are nearly |