In the years following the end of the Second World War, the United States was booming. People coming home from Europe or Asia were rejoining their families or starting new ones, entering the workforce, and, as often as possible, moving out to the suburbs. With the rise of the suburb, the automobile became a required purchase for a vast majority of working Americans.

Employers, wanting to keep their workers happy, saw the lengthy commutes that were developing, understood the need to keep cars reliable, and so began to offer automobile insurance as part of a basic benefits package.

The employees loved it. Suddenly, they no longer had to worry about the financial burden a major repair would impose upon them. If the transmission dropped out, they were covered. If the car was broadsided by a drunk, they were covered. And not having to worry about such things meant people were free to take the money they were setting aside for major repairs and spend it on other things.

Mechanics and body shops appreciated the rise of auto insurance as well. They no longer had to worry about not getting paid for their hard work when or if a repair bill turned out to be more than someone was expecting.

For at least fifteen years, things were good.

Somewhere along the line, mechanics and body shops realized that their customer was no longer the person who brought their car in for service. Their customer was actually the insurance company, a big corporation with lots of money that needed to be spent. And so they began to raise their rates on the big stuff. There were various excuses used to justify their increased prices, from new technology requiring extra equipment to basic inflation. To camouflage the money grab, they also raised the price of basic services that were not covered by insurance. Suddenly the cost of new brakes was something that caused the average car owner to readjust their budget for the month.

Owners complained, and the insurance companies listened. They wanted to keep their customers happy, and so they expanded the number of services their policies covered. This led, of course, to an increase in premiums, but people were happy to pay the relatively small price to keep from having to pay the larger, actual price of the services they needed.

The surprising thing is how long this particular balancing act lasted. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the cycle of increasing prices leading to extra services covered leading to higher premiums came to a head. Suddenly, the chunk of money taken out of every paycheck for auto services became too much to bear, and in the face of a customer revolt, the insurance companies–working hand-in-hand with Congress–developed a new way of providing auto care.

It was the Vehicle Maintenance Organization, and it was designed to cure the high cost of car ownership by bringing everything under one roof.

Everything.

Up until the start of the VMOs, there were still a few basic services people were willing to pay for themselves. Flat tire repairs, oil changes, and gasoline, mostly. Because these things were services not provided by the big mechanics and body shops, their prices were still reasonable. Unfortunately, under the VMO, these things were suddenly covered. Everything related to car ownership was covered, and available for the cost of a small co-pay at the time of service.

Rather than lower costs for everybody, this raised demand for services to an unsustainable level. The VMO’s tried to cover their costs by raising premiums on employers, but the employers went to Congress to increase regulations so that couldn’t happen. So the VMO’s changed the insurance plans they offered, resulting in higher prices for similar levels of coverage anyway.

And it didn’t help that, elsewhere in the world, national governments had taken over their auto insurance industries, providing allegedly free car care to everyone and hiding the true cost in their taxes.

And woe to the person who dared suggest, in this day and age, that there were some things a person ought to be willing to pay for themselves.