Legislators urged to keep hands off auto insurance surplus

When legislators are scrounging for money to fill a budget hole, they always greedily eye the bulging surplus in the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund, the state-sponsored insurer of last resort for motorists who can’t get coverage anywhere else.

Officials of the fund continue to try to beat back the legislative raid on the $145 million current surplus, as they did at a hearing Tuesday before the House Economic Matters Committee.