Yet forcing people to hand over money is a harm caused – to the person who is forced to hand over the money. The harm is compounded by the inarguable fact that the insurance companies are literally in it for the money; i.e., they are for-profit, private businesses that use the government to force people to hand over money to them for harms they have not caused.

There is an even stronger argument to be made that no one ought to be obliged to pay for the choice made by others to purchase a hugely expensive to repair/replace vehicle. Yet that is exactly what is happening to millions of people who are trying to keep what they are forced to pay for insurance – to "cover" harms they have not caused – to a minimum, by not owning expensive to repair/replace vehicles themselves.

Their "coverage" used to be based primarily on such factors under their control, such as the value of their own vehicle and their own driving record, including their record of accidents and claims. A driver who had a "clean" record – as far as tickets for trumped-up traffic offenses – and who had not caused any accidents or filed any claims – paid much less for basic, liability only insurance as per government demands. This was among the perks of not buying a new vehicle, which generally entails having to buy comprehensive coverage, which is much more expensive.

That perk is not what it used to be.

The cost of basic, liability-only insurance had been increasing by double digits – on average, by about 30 percent over the past three years. The main driver is not what is referred to as "inflation." It is the insurance companies making adjustments – as they style them – to the cost of everyone's government-mandated coverage to cover the ballistically increasing repair/replacement costs of new vehicles.

The way they do the math is basically as follows: You may own an old, paid-for vehicle that's not worth much. But if you get into an accident with a new, $75,000 vehicle, it is going to cost the insurance company a lot more to repair or replace it than would have been the case a few years ago, when $75,000 vehicles were far less common. As they have become common (the EV push accounts for much of this) the odds – the mafia will claim – are higher that you might be involved in an accident with one.