Let me make this perfectly clear.

If I wanted to pay the insurance premiums on North Carolina beach-front property, I’d own some damn North Carolina beach-front property.

The scheme afoot to force all homeowners in the state to help pay the insurance costs of coastal property owners is repugnant, an obvious continuation of the recent trend to socialize — nationalize even — risk while privatizing gains. Coastal property owners cannot have it both ways. If they want the considerable benefit of owning beach-front and coastal property, they should be willing to shoulder the cost of doing so.

None of this junk about the entire state benefiting from coastal development. Let’s test that little nostrum. If “we all benefit” from coastal property and it is only fair that I pay five, 10, or 20 percent more in insurance premiums to that end, let’s make that real. When do I get my free three-nights on Bald Head Island that I paid for? Oh, the “we all” bit does not work in that direction, does it?

Or let’s flip it. Surely the entire state benefits from the urban economic centers. Why do I have to pay the full cost of higher home and car insurance premiums, premiums which reflect the increased traffic accident and crime rates of Charlotte and other metro areas? Where is my insurance bailout?

Stuck in the General Assembly with all the other hand-outs and rent-seeking, no doubt.

Bonus Observation: It does not have to be this way. The state’s Beach Plan could be fixed without imposing massive rate hikes across the state and without driving private carriers from the market, but that would require actual leadership from Raleigh.