RV catastrophe–not in Seattle proper but remarkable, isn’t it? (Photo: MvB)
Apparently, the message is that you had better be in good hands if you’re driving in Seattle, because you’re more likely to get into an accident. Out of a field of 200 U.S. cities, Seattle comes in 154th. Where the national average for car accidents is one every ten years, in Seattle, the average driver will collide–or be collided with–every 7.9 years. (Whereas an average Sioux Falls driver, in the top spot, will go almost 14 years between smashups.)
The Eighth Annual “Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report” is not supposed to be a shaming document. “We don’t want drivers in Seattle to be discouraged by their ranking. Instead, we want the report to challenge drivers in Seattle to make positive changes to their driving habits that will in turn make the city a safer place to live, work and raise families,” is the diplomatic framing of Shauna McBride, Allstate’s Regional Spokesperson.
But let’s go ahead and note right here that Tacoma is worse–in 156th place. Those people drive like maniacs. Around the Northwest, Spokane comes in 43rd, slightly bettering the national average, at 10.6 years between bent fenders. But Boise, Idaho, is the real star, coming in second, just a hair behind Sioux Falls. Boise! We throw up our hands.
As Allstate’s tips on safer driving boil down to “drive more safely,” they may be of limited use. One might reasonably assume that people who drive in a rush, distractedly, without a clear idea of where they’re headed, tailgating, unaware of the rules of the road, speeding, and without looking for pedestrians have been told, repeatedly, to be more careful already, without it sinking in. And actually, all of those sound like Seattle driving behaviors, except for the not watching for pedestrians part. (Not that people aren’t run down and killed even so.)
All that is needed now is an overlay of smart phone penetration in U.S. cities, so we can see the relationship between distracted driving and collisions. (Or, to triage the problem, distracted driving and fatalities.) “Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent-at 55 mph-of driving the length of an entire football field, blind,” says the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
For you statistical wonks, here is some background on the Allstate report’s reliability:
A weighted average of the two-year numbers determined the annual percentages. The report defines an auto crash as any collision resulting in a property damage claim. Allstate’s auto policies represent about 10 percent of all U.S. auto policies, making this report a realistic snapshot of what’s happening on America’s roadways.
Roy Whitehead, Washington Federal CEO (Photo: MvB)
“We are the strongest bank in our market,” said Washington Federal Savings CEO Roy Whitehead to the Met Grill’s “Guess the Dow” panel last week. His complaint was that you wouldn’t know that from the stock market. As I wrote then:
This year’s featured speaker, CEO of Washington Federal, Roy Whitehead, gave a textbook illustration of pessimism’s fear to tread. With investors soured on the whole financial sector, Washington Federal’s holding company stock (WSFL) is trading below its tangible book value. That can’t last. At some point, investors will have to agree to have money thrust into their hands, even if it’s from a bank. (Literally. WaFed is paying eight-cents-per-share dividends.)
Whitehead’s point deserves underscoring because it illustrates reason for economic optimism. Investors may well be “once bitten, twice shy,” but investor psychology can turn on a dime, much faster than can institutions with serious structural weaknesses. Not that winning back trust will be–or should be–easy. “If I could wave a magic wand,” admitted Whitehead, “I would bring back Glass-Steagall–or something like it.” Differentiating the role of his bank from investment banks, he said, “We are stewards, not big-game hunters.”
About this time in 2008, people were estimating that some $7.7 trillion had been lost in the subprime mortgage crisis nationally. Bank of America chief market strategist Joseph Quinlan was quoted as saying, “It could take months or even years before Wall Street and others get a handle on the true cost of the U.S. subprime meltdown and the attendant global credit crunch.” A year later, Bank of America’s stock hit a low of $2.53. It’s now trading around $6.60 (BAC).
In contrast, there’s stolid, headline-shy Washington Federal, profitable every single year since 1965, outperforming the industry average regularly, claims Whitehead, in return on assets. (For clarity’s sake, Washington Federal, Inc., is the company that owns the bank known in eight states as Washington Federal Savings.) It’s instructive that “Savings” is the sole word retained from the bank’s original name–it was founded in 1917 as Ballard Savings & Loan. With more than $13.4 billion in assets, Washington Federal still mainly makes its money the old-fashioned way, by loaning out depositors’ money against fixed-rate mortgages, which it holds onto.
On the face of it, there’s no reason for Washington Federal to be affected by subprime contagion; they never offered anything but “pure vanilla” fixed-rate mortgages to applicants whose credit-worthiness they knew, and since they never tried to securitize those loans, their ownership of the note is unquestioned. Because the crisis developed into a national tide that sank all boats, Washington Federal did see more non-performing assets than usual, but charge-offs reached their quarterly peak of almost $60 million back in spring of 2010, subsiding to just over $10 million for Q4 of 2011.
Conversely, net income has grown from about $13 million in Q2 of 2010 to about $33 million last quarter. Everything, said Whitehead, pointing to his graphs and charts, is “going in right direction except for loan volume, which is an industry-wide problem.” It’s still a difficult climate for lending if you are prudent with depositors’ money. Rather than compromise on the quality of their mortgages, Washington Federal is supplementing those loans with an evolution, begun “six or seven years ago,” into more commercial lending: real estate loans, term loans and lines of credit, and other business-related financial services.
That’s also a response to the fact that, as Whitehead put it, “the mortgage industry has been nationalized. We have conceded the largest asset class in the world to the federal government.” One way or another, the U.S. government backs 97 percent of mortgages, and Whitehead, I think it’s fair to say, believes that is a driver behind changing social attitudes toward credit obligations. When lending is local, there’s a social obligation to repayment–as George Bailey famously explained, that’s your neighbors’ money at work. When it’s the federal government, people find it emotionally easier to just walk away.
And that’s just one of his industry-fed headaches, the list of which includes other banks’ embedded balance sheet issues, exposure to the European economic crisis, historically low interest rates, the capping of debit card transaction fees, and spiking FDIC insurance: “The premiums the company pays to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) skyrocketed to $22 million last year, up from $870,000 in 2008,” reports Sanjay Bhatt in the Seattle Times.
His bank was just named #1 of “10 Well-Run, Profitable Banks” by TheStreet.com (who list WaFed as a Buy, currently), and back in January 2011, one of “10 Western Bank Stocks for the Long Term.” Summing up his bank’s thriftiness, Whitehead said, “We spend 30 cents to make a dollar.” But regulations imposed for other banks’ risky behaviors are cutting into the competitive edge that efficiency gives Washington Federal. They pay the same skyrocketing FDIC rates as any other bank, they’re pressed to hold a larger percentage of assets as collateral, they’re asked to fill out forms in triplicate to triplicating agencies.
When the FDIC agrees to back $250,000 of your deposit, that agreement doesn’t come for free. The bank cedes some autonomy, and takes on not-insignificant back-end reporting costs. In place of the personal trust shown by a local lender, the government demands verification, and in place of accountability, it often seems by design to prefer a blizzard of paperwork, instead.
It doesn’t need to be this way, argues Whitehead. Banks “need to win the public back over,” and they can, by recognizing (again) that savings banks and investment banks are not the same thing. “Compensation practices need to change,” he said, adding that he has always resisted paying incentives that weren’t tied to overall bank performance. Because they can, Washington Federal is working with its customers on mortgage adjustments, depending on ability to pay. They’re offering temporary, interest-only payment plans and even forgiving principal in extreme cases, sharing the “haircut” on valuations with their clients.
It’s striking to hear a graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University say–in response to a question about Occupy Wall Street–that “young people need to be rioting in Washington about the forfeiture of their future.” Give it time.
The short answer is, Give up all hope of ever seeing it again.
As Consumerist puts it: “Airline Employees Really Don’t Care That You Left Your iPad On The Plane.” It is, of course, something that you would never do in the first place, happy person still in possession of your iPad. You will always be extremely careful with your iPad, and listen carefully to that reminder about making sure you have collected all your items. But let this Consumerist story be a lesson to you–once you’ve left the plane, your iPad is likely gone. To disabuse anyone of the notion that airlines have the time and staff to look for an iPad–more Consumerist stories aside–I can offer my own experience.
On my way back from Puerto Rico, flying US Airways, I had a connecting flight in Charlotte, where I changed planes for the final leg to Seattle. I was in the middle of reading Game of Thrones on the Kindle app, and so I stuffed my iPad into the seatback in front of me. I also pulled out my camera–since the view out my porthole was gorgeous–and spent the entire flight happily clicking away. As we pulled up to the gate, the person in the seat behind me dropped their phone, and had me look under my seat for it. Then I grabbed my camera and the extra lens, packed up, and left the plane.
About an hour into the Charlotte-Seattle flight, I reached into my bag for my iPad–and suddenly remembered stuffing it into the seatback of my last plane. Still, it’d been only two or three hours, so no reason to panic. That was the night of December 17, 2011.
Now, I’m a little astonished by my naivete. I actually had the idea that US Airways staff might, from the plane, alert the cleaning staff about my iPad. It wasn’t as expensive as my camera, but with the Logitech wireless keyboard I was using as a faceplate, it would set me back over $700 to replace. Maybe insurance will help cover that–but what starts to eat at you is the worry about what sensitive information might be accessible. Was there any? Who can be sure? It’ll lock, right? How impossible is a four-character code to break?
The flight attendant did not drop everything to alert US Airways Lost & Found HQ of my emergency, you probably have guessed. People–other people, not you, happy person still in possession of their iPad–forget and leave their iPads on the plane all the time. I was supposed to tell the agent at the gate when we arrived in Seattle, which I did. She directed me to the Lost & Found at SeaTac’s baggage claim area, where I filed an incident report sufficient to ID my iPad, complete with the seat number where it was located.
But, again, this information was not going to be communicated to anyone who might walk onto the plane and check the seatback in question. If an iPad was found by a cleaning or maintenance crew, and they noted the seatback it came from, it might help. I left SeaTac with the number for the US Airways Lost & Found at the Charlotte airport (704-359-3075), and called and left a message the next morning, giving them the pertinent details.
They called back, and said a) they don’t normally call back to say they have found nothing, and b) they hadn’t found my iPad. I was to give them another day and call again. Which I did. Still nothing, though they had several other iPads on hand that they powered up to check if any were mine. (The Lost & Found has an iPad power cord to deal with dead batteries.)
It was in the course of these phone calls that I learned no one was ever going to just walk onto the plane and check the seatback for me. If a cleaning crew didn’t find my iPad, it would have to wait for a passenger to notice it. An added wrinkle, with iPads, is that if you’ve enabled Find My iPhone tracking software, you can tell if someone has used it to connect to the internet, and even determine its location. (Mine remains obstinately offline.) But knowing that it wasn’t being used made me suspect it hadn’t simply been stolen, but perhaps had traveled with the plane to another airport.
After an hour or so on the phone with US Airways, I learned that they were unable to tell me where my plane had gone to next. This was a little hard to credit, as was their assurance that my missing iPad would have been found before the plane took off again. But in any event, all items unclaimed from US Airways Lost & Founds after about a week make their way to what I fondly imagine to be a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style warehouse-sized Lost & Found in Charlotte, NC. You email them a passenger property form (pdf), and, in my case, in two days they send you an email that reads:
Dear [MvB]:
Thanks for contacting US Airways. I’m sorry to hear that you misplaced an item during your trip.
I reviewed your Lost Property file and your iPad has not been located at this time. I’m sorry the result could not have been better.
[MvB], if we do find your item, we’ll be sure to contact you right away. Thanks for flying with US Airways.
Sincerely,
Goodbye, iPad. For two and half months, we shared some times I know I’ll never forget. Maybe you’re in a better place.
Our Flickr pool's mangpages captured this dental hygiene horror story for us.
Washington Dental Service (part of the Delta Dental family) boasts 2.5 million customers and over $900 million in revenue annually, but the non-profit has also told its dentists to expect 15 percent cuts in reimbursements for procedures as of this June.
“We found that 94¢ of every dollar went to paying dentists, while 6¢ went to internal costs,” claims Ron Inge, DDS, dental director and vice president of professional services for WDS.
Top pay at WDS is reputed to be about $900,00 per year, making it one of the more generously paying non-profits to work for, at least for its executives.
The news had 4,000 Washington dentists grinding their teeth, and penciling out how much dropping WDS-insured clients would cost them.
Combine that pressure with the fact that some 60 percent of Washington residents don’t have dental insurance, and Dr. Dan Marut’s Quality Dental Plan starts looking like a very interesting proposition indeed. Marut–honored as the “Best Dentist in Ashland”–established his Quality Dental Plan in October 2009, and it has two objectives: to get uninsured people to visit the dentist, and to put payments back in the hands of dentists. It’s not a third-party system–each dentist’s office runs their billing, using QDP’s proprietary “back office” set-up.
Patients pay a simple annual membership fee, and in return they get a preventive dental care package. I spoke with Poulsbo’s Jeromy Peterson, DDS, about the details. Peterson says he charges $325 per year (QDP is customizable, so the price varies dentist office by office), and then members receive two teeth cleanings, an annual dental exam and x-ray, and a teeth whitening (that last an in-demand cosmetic procedure not usually covered by insurance). There’s a discounted rate for additional family members.
Members also save 15 percent on any other treatments (cosmetics, implants, orthodontics), with no limit, and no deductible. Contrast that $325 yearly with Washington Dental Services basic individual plan (around $544, with maximum coverage of $1,000), and it’s easy to see the benefits.
Peterson, a 1997 graduate of the University of Washington School of Dentistry, attended the UW on a Navy scholarship, and afterwards put three years in the service, before setting up shop in Poulsbo, where he has 1,200 patients. “They’re typically people who don’t have insurance right now,” he says of his QDP members. “Every single one of my patients who wasn’t insured has signed up for it.”
Peterson is a fan of QDP because it keeps the patient relationship with the dentist–no insurance company steps in between to negotiate what’s covered, at what rate, and at their own speed of reimbursement. He sees big changes coming in Washington’s dental coverage landscape, as other major carriers cut their reimbursements as well.
Premiums, he notes, have yet to reflect all this cost-cutting. “We do have patients who have been moving away to HSAs, or who have dropped their insurance because they don’t use it enough to justify the costs,” he says, and predicts it won’t be long before businesses start to adopt QDP, lured by the fixed cost of the membership. (This is the same reason medical provider Qliance has drawn its business customers.)
If you’re curious, but not near Poulsbo, Dr. Wendy Crisafulli in Bothell and Dr. Lindsay Barry in Kirkland also offer the Quality Dental Plan. Here’s a list of other dentists offering QDP around Washington:
Benson Hill Smiles
Thomas A. Caspers, DDS
Renton, WA www.bensonhillsmiles.com
Randy McLeary, DDS
Bonney Lake, WA
www.bonneylakedentist.com
CE Family Dentistry
Olivia Collier, DDS
Bellingham, WA
www.cefamilydental.com
Banner Family Dental
Drs Lael and Brant Banner
Tumwater, WA
www.bannerfamilydental.com
Aesthetic Dental Center
Van H. Vuong, DDS
Federal Way, WA
www.AestheticDentalCenters.com
