Private insurance companies have been capitalizing on mass shootings,
especially as more and more companies and
institutions are looking to purchase insurance policies that would protect them
from lawsuits should a mass shooter show up to their establishment and open fire.
Now, turns out that since there have been so many of these shootings,
the premiums associated with these policies have gone up.
And if you think this isn't gonna impact you in any way, you would be wrong.
First, let's learn a little more about what these insurance policies entail.
Active shooter insurance typically covers victim lawsuits,
building repairs, legal fees, medical expenses and trauma counseling.
Now, if you're wondering, well, how much does this cost?
How much have the premiums for this type of thing gone up?
Chris Parker, Head of Political Violence and
Deadly Weapons Protection at Lloyd's of London insurer Beazley,
said the insurer had seen a 25% jump in revenue so far this year for
its deadly weapon policy with 30 to 35% jump with a 30
to 35% jump in inquiries and a 10% to 15% increase in
rates driven by the rising number and severity of gun attacks.
So as I'm giving you the details of the story, what I want you to really
take in here is putting this in the context of a political system and
economic system where profits will always take priority over human lives,
profits will always take priority over human lives.
I say that because this is now an industry that is profiting handsomely
off of our failure to do a damn thing about gun violence, about lax gun laws,
about what we're seeing day in day out with these mass shootings.
And if you have an industry that is benefiting from it, profiting from it,
they're gonna lobby to protect the lax gun laws that we have today.
Let me give you more.
Going back to Chris Parker, the gentleman we heard from earlier,
he said clients are now buying insurance to cover themselves for
5 to 10 million in losses compared 1 to 3 million just four years ago.
Policyholders typically can pay tens of thousands of dollars for
one million in coverage.
Beazley's clients include schools, which are publicly funded,
municipalities, publicly funded, houses of worship, bars and restaurants.
So when you think about our underfunded public schools,
think about the fact that now a portion of their
resources will be spent on active shooter insurance.
And these premiums are gonna keep going up, Jessica.
If there's one thing we know, the premiums will always keep going up.
>> Absolutely.
We can learn a lesson from private health insurance.
They have been lobbying year after year,
over $600 million a year in lobbying from private health insurance.
Why?
Because every year, congress considers passing legislation that will make health
care more accessible in the United States.
Why do we think they do not?
Because they're taking a ton of money and
their pockets are lined by private healthcare companies that want to keep
profiting off of giving people a basic right access to healthcare.
We're going to see this happen as well now with the active
shooter insurance lobby, which is insane.
It's insane that there is even an industry around this, that this is even necessary.
And do we think that with these premiums going up,
the corporations are going to eat that cost?
Absolutely not.
They're going to wanna keep their profit margins precisely where they are,
which means they're going to push that additional cost to the consumer and
they're going to raise prices so
that they don't have to cut into their profits in order to have this insurance.
>> That's such a great point.
Anytime you see something broken in our system and you think, well, I mean,
I don't own a business, so I'm probably going to be untouched by this.
You're not as you know,
the lobbying is going to continue to maintain these terrible lax gun laws.
And I say that as someone who on multiple occasions on this show, I've told you,
I'm not in favor of banning guns, right?
I do think that there are common sense gun policies that we should implement.
So people can't just go to a gun show and
willy nilly buy whatever they want without a federal background check, for instance.
But putting that aside, yeah, you're right.
I mean everything, profits don't trickle down to ordinary Americans.
But one thing that does trickle down to ordinary Americans is added costs for
businesses.
So we will be paying more for various things that we buy as consumers.
We will see more of our taxpayer money,
more of our resources going toward this as opposed to other things that we need,
like better textbooks for students and things like that in our public schools.
And churches are concerned as well.
For instance, church mutual, a leading insurer of religious organizations
in the United States, said it had seen a 10 to 15% rise in inquiries around
armed intruders and mass shooters and an increase in requests for services.
Church mutual has seen more demand for its pull for police device,
which allows a customer to pull a tab triggering a signal to law
enforcement that there's an armed intruder event.
Yeah, and by the way, insurers are already charging schools,
health care institutions and retail establishments more for
cover and prices in general are 5 to 10% higher than last year.
So this issue is costing us money.
It's also killing us because of the fact that our lawmakers won't do
anything about gun laws, won't do anything about these mass shooters.
And then you've got the weapons manufacturers who are making
money off of it.
So anytime you see something broken, and
you're wondering why isn't anyone fixing it?
It's because there's either a company or just a group of people
making money off of it, profits over people in a country that just
did away with constitutional rights for women to have abortions.
>> Yeah, let's also think, I want to compare what's going on in the US right
now to what's going on in Europe, right?
There are a lot of laws about who can have guns and where in Europe,
they have far less mass shootings than us.
There are also a lot of policies in Europe where the government taxes you for
a service like universal health care and you get health care.
A lot of people complain that in many European countries will they pay such
high taxes?
I don't wanna pay high taxes.
In many cases, people in the United States are paying a higher tax rate, but
not getting the public goods that are guaranteed in those European countries.
Think about what you pay in taxes and what the government is doing with that money.
Do we want to pay taxes to our government so
that they can potentially have to subsidize active shooter insurance or
would we rather then regulate when and where people can have guns and
how they can get them and not have to pay that extra premium when we're going to
the stores because the corporations are pushing that cost onto the consumer.
And not having to pay our elected officials who are then going to be lobbied
by these people to not pass legislation that's commonsensical to change this.
We're paying so many premiums in the United States.
On top of our taxes, we pay for our own private healthcare.
Our taxes are already high.
We might as well add to that figure,
the same public goods that are observed in other modern countries.
We would be paying insane taxes if we accounted for
all of the things that they pay for at a much lower tax rate.
It's insane to me that people in the United States are okay with this.
And if you ask anyone in any other country what the political spectrum is in
the United States, by the way, they would tell you that Democrats are on the right.
And people in the United States are told
by mainstream media that Biden is extremely far left,
think about what this does to the average American viewer of mainstream news.
Now they think if I think anything that's to the left of Biden,
that would be insane.
This is how they've essentially tricked and propagandized the American public to
pretty much stay within the confines of neoliberalism and not question it.
And now I think people are starting to wake up to it and I hope that continues.