WHEREAS, The Administration has begun an aggressive enforcement initiative designed to compel uninsured Philadelphia drivers to purchase appropriate automobile insurance or risk losing their vehicles through seizure; and
WHEREAS, The largest barrier to compliance by Philadelphia residents with the Commonwealth's mandatory automobile insurance law has been the unconscionably high cost of automobile insurance for Philadelphia drivers; and
WHEREAS, This Council has recently adopted several resolutions decrying the pricing practices of insurance carriers which charge Philadelphia drivers more than twice the rate charged to residents of the surrounding four counties and three times the rate of residents of the City of Pittsburgh; and
WHEREAS, Traditional dollars-per-year automobile insurance, which is priced without regard to the amount of vehicle miles driven, overcharges those drivers who drive the fewest miles and are often the least able to afford the higher costs of conventional coverage; and
WHEREAS, There is an affordable, cost-based alternative to traditional dollars-per-year insurance known as cents-per-mile automobile insurance, which allows drivers to exert direct control over the cost of their insurance by purchasing only the amount of insurance they need at a cents-per-mile rate; and
WHEREAS, The State of Texas became the first state to permit non-commercial drivers to purchase automobile insurance coverage by the mile on January 23, 2002, giving Texas drivers the choice of either the traditional fixed annual rate or the new cents-per-mile for their car's profile group; and
WHEREAS, Those choosing to buy insurance at the cents-per-mile rate can decide when to buy miles of protection in advance and how many miles to buy at a time to suit budget and convenience -- much like buying gasoline or pre-paid long distance telephone calling cards; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia drivers may be able to realize substantial savings in their cost of automobile insurance under a cents-per-mile rating structure; now therefore
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the authority be given to the Law and Government Committee to conduct a full and comprehensive investigation of the desirability of offering mile-based insurance to drivers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. At the conclusion of its investigation, the Committee shall communicate its findings to the Mayor's Task Force on Automobile Insurance Rate Reduction and to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
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