First--Year Costs Results Under No--Fault Automobile Insurance: A Comparison of the Florida and Massachusetts Experience.

In the early summer of 1973, insurers representing about 65 percent of the Florida private passenger automobile insurance market cooperated ill supplying incurred accident-year experience for 1971 and 1972 to provide a basis for measuring probable first-year cost results in Florida under no-fault. Insurers differed, and sometimes substantially, in their reported results. But a summary of all submissions indicates a probable increase in insurer costs at the 15-month development. This is in marked contrast with the Massachusetts experience reported a year ago in the Journal and casts doubt on the present ability of no-fault system designers to balance threshold and benefit accounts without actual market experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]