Here’s an old fable that I’ll put into my own words. This middle aged guy had two girlfriends, one younger than himself, one older. The girlfriends were always messing with his hair. Little did he know that when the younger was running her fingers through his hair she was actually plucking out his gray hairs so he would look younger and appear closer to her age. When the older girlfriend ran her fingers through his hair she was looking for dark hairs to pluck out. That way he’d look closer to her age. The poor guy eventually went bald.

Here follows my application of the fable in real life: The guy with two girlfriends is the State of Alabama. Baldwin and Mobile counties are the older girlfriend. The state’s other 65 counties are the younger girlfriend.

The application here is to the coastal insurance crisis. See, the older girlfriend has a couple of blemishes on her face. We’ll call those zits Ivan and Katrina. Starting in 2006, the Alabama Department of Insurance concluded that coastal losses (in Mobile and Baldwin counties) would be much higher than the rest of the state, so DOI imposed radically higher homeowners insurance premiums on the older girlfriend. The state’s homeowners’ rates increased anywhere from 250 to 325 percent above the state average for people living in the two coastal counties.

But guess what? When a hurricane hits the old girlfriend (Mobile, Baldwin), it doesn’t stop there. It affects the younger girlfriend too. The Homeowners Hurricane Insurance Initiative (HHII) is a local group that’s been trying to serve as a “psychoanalyst” for years and get DOI on the “couch” for a soul-searching look at its weird behavior where the old girlfriend is concerned.

Using DOI’s own data, HHII has discovered that when Hurricane Ivan hit in 2004 four inland counties (Escambia, Monroe, Conecuh, Clarke) suffered greater losses-per-policy than Baldwin and 12 inland counties (add Wilcox, Washington, Butler, Covington, Lowndes, Choctaw, Marengo, Perry) suffered greater losses-per-policy than Mobile. Katrina in 2005? Seven inland counties (Washington, Escambia, Choctaw, Sumter, Clarke, Pike, Greene) had greater losses-per-policy than Baldwin County.

Over a 10-year period HHII’s extensive research puts coastal loss-per-policy at $622 as compared with a statewide loss-per-policy of $722, and yet the state average for full homeowners insurance is $950 compared to $1,384 for the coastal counties.

The bottom line: Why should homeowners on the coast pay 300 percent more in homeowners premiums when they actually have less losses than the rest of the state? HHII is demanding that DOI stop this unfair discrimination against the old girlfriend. After all, as HHII points out, the young girlfriend has blemishes too in the form of tornadoes and hail.

Remember, the 2011 tornadoes alone did $327 million in damage to Tuscaloosa and $587 million to Jefferson County.

If you’re the old girlfriend and you’re tired of the young girlfriend catching all the breaks in dollars and cents, contact HHII at 251-928-3430 and help put an end to this unfair price discrimination.

Now, let me anticipate what many of you are thinking. You’re saying, “Bob, your fable is the worst analogy I’ve ever read. It doesn’t add up and there are more holes in its application than you’ve got holes in your head!”

To you I say, congratulations on being so smart. You are correct. None of the above pertaining to DOI makes any sense whatsoever.

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.