COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION

A lawsuit filed Friday in Suffolk Superior Court to overturn a key provision of the state's new "managed competition" approach to auto insurance, while not wholly without merit, regrettably illustrates Voltaire's maxim that "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

Arbella Insurance Group, joined by the Massachusetts Association of Insurance Agents, takes aim at state Insurance Commissioner Nonnie S. Burnes, whose rules permit insurers from outside Massachusetts to enter the market here without having to face the prospect of covering the most risky drivers. They say that Rule 30, which grants newcomers a two-year grace period from writing some high-risk policies, is inequitable to those companies who have been doing business in the state all along.

Their claim may carry some weight, but the long-awaited arrival of competition - a feature absent for the last 30 years - should weigh much more heavily in the scales of justice.

It is no small achievement to move from what former Gov. Mitt Romney once dubbed a "Soviet-style" auto insurance market to one in which companies compete. A grace period for new entrants to a market has been a common feature in many states' reform efforts. While a level playing field is the ideal toward which the state should move, attracting enough players to make the game meaningful has to come first.

Ms. Burnes displayed both common sense and political courage in pushing ahead with auto insurance reform. The new system is still in first gear, and we hope the courts recognize that a short-lived inequity should not be grounds for undercutting reforms for which consumers have waited decades.