NU Online News Service, April 8, 2:50 p.m.EDT

Arizona has become the 12^th state to approvelegislation that either prohibits or restricts a so-called accidentor crash tax.

The bill now heads to Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature,according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America(PCI).

"We applaud lawmakers for responding to the strong publicopposition to this new trend of charging accident-response fees,"says Kelly Campbell, vice president at PCI. "Ultimately these feesare a back-door tax that most consumers believe areunnecessary."

HB 2003, sponsored by Rep. John Kavanaugh (R-Fountain Hills),prohibits local government from charging crash taxes for emergencyservices response but it does allow some fees in rural areasoutside of fire districts.

This week New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg nixed a proposal to impose a crash tax in thecity. In California, crash tax ordinances were repealed inSacramento, Vista and Roseville.

In 2010 the top writers of personal automobile insurance inArizona were State Farm (17 percent market share), Zurich InsuranceGroup (12 percent), Progressive (9.6 percent), Allstate (9.1percent) and Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Group (8.7 percent),according to Highline Data.

Highline Data is a part of Summit Business Media, which also ownNational Underwriter.