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Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: bytemaster on January 01, 2016, 05:21:18 pm

Title: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: bytemaster on January 01, 2016, 05:21:18 pm
http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2016/01/01/Mutual-Aid-Society-vs-Insurance/
Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: xeroc on January 01, 2016, 05:38:40 pm
Its important to realize that you are focusing on the U.S. here but many more countires with different rules exist aswell!
Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: pc on January 01, 2016, 05:44:16 pm
You are implying that the 30% administrative overhead is caused by insurance companies. I think that is a misinterpretation and that the 30% number given in the referenced article includes the administrative overhead for example in hospitals as well.

For comparison: the health insurance that I use has an administrative overhead of 1.4%, and it actually pays out more than 100% of what the members pay in (thanks to the revenue generated from investing their reserves). German article: http://www.geld-magazin.info/debeka-krankenversicherung/
Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: Akado on January 01, 2016, 05:51:19 pm
Dan have you read this? It's relatively small and also has an approach on some kind of decentralized Insurance. Basically everything relies on reputation. I think ultimately this would be a MAS, since everything is based on your reputation. Seems an interesting and curious approach
https://mises.org/library/chaos-theory

II. INSURANCE
The contractual system described above seems to work well,
except for one nagging problem: How can people afford to pay
these outrageous fines? Granted, someone might sign a piece of
paper, pledging restitution to his employer if he is caught stealing.

But suppose he steals anyway, and is found guilty by the arbitration
agency, but has no money. Then what?
Well, how does our present system of auto damages work? Right
now, if I sideswipe someone, I must pay a stiff penalty. Or rather,
my insurance company does.
It would be the same way with all torts and crimes under the
system I’ve described. An insurance company would act as a guarantor
(or co-signer) of a client’s contracts with various firms. Just
as a bank uses experts to take depositors’ money and efficiently
allocate it to borrowers, so too would the experts at the insurance
company determine the risk of a certain client (i.e., the likelihood
he or she would violate contracts by stealing or killing) and
charge an appropriate premium. Thus, other firms wouldn’t have
to keep tabs on all of their customers and employees; the firms’
only responsibility would be to make sure everyone they dealt with
carried a policy with a reputable insurance agency.
Under this system, the victims of a crime are always paid, immediately.
(Contrast this to the government system, where victims
usually get nothing except the satisfaction of seeing the criminal
placed behind bars.) There would also be incentives for people to
behave responsibly. Just as reckless drivers pay higher premiums
for car insurance, so too would repeat offenders be charged higher
premiums for their contract insurance.
And why would the person with criminal proclivities care about
his insurance company? Well, if he stopped paying his premiums,
his coverage would be dropped. With no one to underwrite his
contractual obligations, such a person would make a very poor customer
or employee. People wouldn’t hire him or trust him to browse
through a china shop, since there would be no “legal” recourse if
he did anything “criminal.” In order to get by in society, it would
be extremely useful to keep one’s insurance coverage by always
paying the premiums. And that means it would be in one’s great
interest to refrain from criminal activity, since that would be the
way to keep premiums down.

Admittedly, such arguments seem fanciful. But they are no more
farfetched than the modern credit card system. People have huge
lines of credit advanced to them, sometimes only by filling out a
form, and it is extremely easy to engage in credit card fraud. A prodigal
may run up a huge bill and simply refuse to pay it, yet in most
cases nothing physical will happen to him. But most people don’t
behave in such an irresponsible manner, because they don’t want to
ruin their credit history. If they do, they know they’ll forever more
be cut off from this wonderful tool of the capitalist society.
Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: xeroc on January 01, 2016, 06:22:56 pm
another thing worth a thought is how to incentivize inspectors ... could they be 'paid' by the society as well? Either on a per claim basis, a subscription model or maybe as a 'society worker'?
Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: 38PTSWarrior on January 01, 2016, 08:33:50 pm
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100% MAS support!
Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: btstip on January 01, 2016, 08:44:37 pm
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Title: Re: Mutual Aid Society vs Insurance [BLOG POST]
Post by: Pheonike on January 02, 2016, 04:46:32 am
Wouldn't it be nice if there was oh say a bond market that's the funds could be put into to gain a modest return? Where could this been market be...