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I can’t help an ongoing chuckle over China’s 1959 mouse mandate. An initiative (faulty ideas sound better as empowering (another meaningless addition) an initiative) put forward by a crayon-credentialed expert eyeing potential benefit to her/him and no consequences. None. Can’t let realities get in the way of empowering initiatives, can we?

The backers of wonderful imitative seem never to look wide. Such being, if only half the population of one billion succeeds in killing a mouse, what, then, do we do with 500,000 rodents deceased? Who counts them? Where/how do we store them before/after tallying? The logistics are horribly humorous. 
And do you think the concocter considered the potential for a black market in dead mice? With mandated quotas to meet you can bet your ranch there’d be under-the-counter mouse sellers. Or even cartels stealing already counted mice for reuse.

Normal-nice people such as you, dear reader of Reader, probably spare yourselves the worry of mass mouse disposal and questions of how rats are to be counted, and what do you do if a grain-eating pigeon or squirrel is offered by a citizen who snagged one of those instead of a mouse? 

As details are worked out you still have a half-billion dead mice (even one of which capable of stinking up a large area) to deal with that month. Multiply twelve times. What a fun initiative that would make people want a dead mouse. Amazing.

Now shift away from rodent mortality to mandates of a more useful sort. Because I’m not always and entirely useless let me turn to insurance. 

Earlier in life parents, employers and banks steered my insurance choices. When the young male driver (I wonder these days if one couldn’t identify as a female driver for a better rate – worth considering) faced droppage from family coverage, he went “YOW!” 

What to do? 

Skills in executing a snappy timber hitch or wider knowledge of Thoreau’s Walden Pond days did not prepare me to understand insurance. 

By dumb (guided as you’ll see by useful State of MN policy) luck I stumbled wide-of-eye and ignorant into an agent’s office. There 90 percent or more of what I was told skipped happily over a head recognizing cost and sign here. Covered, I could revert to a happy condition of auto insurance ignorance.

At the time I was keeping company with a co-worker quick to scoff at my “overpaying” for insurance. 
Hers, from a company in south-of-somewhere, was much cheaper. Then, one January she hit a deer. Sixty days later I was still acting as chauffeur. South-of-somewhere’s adjustor was otherwise engaged or didn’t like cold weather and rural areas. Then the wrangling began. 

Was auto body damage done by Bambi the cause of the radiator leak or the result of a vehicle flaw? How long can this go on? The answer. When lilacs bloomed in the neighbor’s yard. 

Turned out the cost of insurance that didn’t include supporting representation by an agent wasn’t so cheap after all. A lesson learned. I was never forgiven for being right about my choice, even with abject admission of total ignorance of the fact. She held that against me, too. 

That’s the way it works.

As done with mice and now with the above story, we set that aside to look at how the state rightly steps in with mandates, attempting to help or protect its people. 

In my unquestionably wrong view, state mandates are more suspect when applied to the general population and less so (considerably) when applied to specific providers or professions. We want skill. etc. mandates for pilots rather than qualifying passengers. A skilled miner or cosmetologist might not, however, be knowing when it comes to banking-lending, real estate purchases-rentals or home-life-auto-etc. insurance. 

The state protects the miner, cosmetologist, etc. consumer by mandating those professions and professionals to follow what’s loosely considered Agency Law. That means Agencies and Agents must act as best they can in the best interests of their consumer customers. 

The result without Agency Law protections might otherwise be predatory practices – acting in ways to the customer’s disadvantage.

In Minnesota it’s likely at some point you’ll deal with a profession influenced or regulated by Agency Regulation or Law. Applies essentially to any licensed professional. 

When that happens make sure to ask them about this. It’s important you know the purpose and limits of Agency. Ask and listen. 

A licensed professional is by law and oath duty bound to represent the interests of the customer along with those of the business or company. Performance of this duty is never going to be 100% effective because customers and concerns vary too widely. But at the very least the agent must represent customer needs and situation in addition to those of the business or service being offered. If you’re in an employer or etc. group your representation (most frequently in health insurance) is covered even though you don’t personally deal with the agency or agent handling applications or claims, etc. The mandate to represent the insured still applies, but is not experienced as directly.

If outside a health group, as I am, you might also slip out from under the protection of the Agency umbrella, especially if your agency or agent retire and you have to go solo, in what’s at times called orphan coverage. 

My recent situation, given as a hopefully useful example, is with a company using MN in its name. Should be covered by MN Agency Law. 

But wait a second. The first (in this case blue) warning flag; customer service is in Asia where salespeople are not bound by MN licensing or duty requirements. Next flag, corporate office in El Paso with who-knows for agency representation of customers. All can sound and look well, it’s intended to, but that does not mean the company is not slyly skirting MN agency protections to put serving company interests first. 

MN Agency Law in intended to protect consumers, but is easily corrupted. Using an instate Agent/Agency is of value because agents and agencies are duty bound to represent the interests of consumers.