"...the whole insurance industry has been operating as a syndicated empire...." And do all the service stations in your market area have different prices for the standard grades of fuel? Do you think the fuel would be cheaper if the Federal government simply set the price and drove half of them out of business? It always amuses me that so many people believe that, if a business charges more than its competitor, it is gouging; if it charges the same as its competitor, it is colluding; and if it charges less, it is obviously engaging in predatory price-cutting. (Only a very few people are able to disgorge enough sophistic argument to explain this away in a manner that would satisfy even a child, but apparently, there are enough of them around to satisfy anti-business types.)