One roadblock to arming teachers: Insurance companies

[DonViejo]

By Todd C. Frankel
May 26 at 11:13 PM

Kansas has a problem: It has a law allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom, but almost no schools are using it because insurance companies refuse to provide coverage if they do. As EMC Insurance, the largest insurer of schools in Kansas, explained in a letter to its agents, the company “has concluded that concealed handguns on school premises poses a heightened liability risk.”

Then came the Parkland, Fla., school shooting in February, leading frustrated Republican legislators in Kansas to try forcing the issue with a bill banning “unfair, discriminatory” rates for schools that arm staff. The insurance industry held firm. Last month, the bill failed.

“I don’t think insurance companies are notorious anti-gun liberals,” said Mark Tallman, associate executive director for the Kansas Association of School Boards, “so we think they’ve got good reasons for not doing it.”

As proposals to arm teachers sweep across the nation, insurance companies are being forced to weigh the risks of these controversial plans. Some insurers are balking. Some are agreeing to provide policies but lamenting the lack of evidence about whether it makes schools safer — or increases the chances of people getting shot. Others are raising rates.

“There’s not a lot of carriers that want to insure that risk,” Nate Walker, a senior vice president at insurer AmWINS Group.

The reaction of insurance companies is notable because they are supposed to evaluate dangers through the dry eye of actuarial science, largely avoiding the heated emotions of the nation’s gun debate, in which one side condemns guns and the other side claims, as Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) did last week, that the best way to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/one-roadblock-to-arming-teachers-insurance-companies/2018/05/26/59d6c704-5f7e-11e8-8c93-8cf33c21da8d_story.html

[True Dough]

1. Another roadblock to arming teachers:

Many teachers DO NOT want to be armed!

[Frustratedlady]

2. Good! At least someone is using common sense.

The only reason they want teachers to take control of the situation is that it gets the issue off their backs. Chicken legislators can't face up to their responsibility or the NRA. The NRA is only interested in money and go into hiding each time a teenager shoots up a school.

Can anyone tell me how a teen can build pipe bombs and prepare to shoot up a school without the parents being aware something is wrong? Don't they communicate at all? Check their bedroom? Have any parents been charged with aiding and abetting? If they have, I can't remember any.

Teachers are already overloaded and spend so much time at school or on school tasks at home that they don't have time for their own families. I have three teachers in my family and I know their workloads. They are so exhausted by the time they get through the evening meal that they go to bed unless they have reports or papers to grade. That's not the life they bargained for, but they love the kids so much, they would never leave them in the lurch. They also know that they are not capable of shooting another person, so have no desire to be the hero. How many congresscritters would take on that responsibility?

[genxlib]

3. It is hard to find much to like about insurance companies

But this is one thing I like.

They don't put up with a lot of bullshit. It is always about the statistical analysis. Whatever the numbers say rules.

Back when everyone else was still debating about whether cigarettes were bad for you, the insurance companies started charging like they were. The bullshit didn't matter. Only the statistics.

They will also lead the way on Climate Change. While everyone else will keep arguing, the insurance companies will set policy by pricing the risk as they see it. The only reason this has emerged slowly is that the Government has taken on the larger share of the risk related to flooding and coastal damage.