[VIDEO] Explanation of BitShares Insurance DAC

[toa]

Health insurance is pretty complicated. However, this model is not solely for health insurance. And as far as health insurance goes. There are different ways of implementing it. Namely, you don't have to have a DAC that pays out chronic or disease related risk. It could potentially just act in concert with more traditional health insurances. For instance... A DAC that only covers acute and physical trauma, like a bike accident. An accident with a saw, getting struck by lightning etc. Of course some peoples activities put them in higher risk, but it is easier to find out and prove if an accident happened that was covered. Extreme mountain biking or climbing Mt Everest probably wouldn't be covered. Or also potentially just an insurance that covers deductibles on traditional existing high deductible insurances. Lots of ways to play around with it and find the appropriate use case.

[gyhy]

 

[vikram]

Interesting video that everyone should watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CFlA8TdWmk

Great video.

[luckybit]

Interesting video that everyone should watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CFlA8TdWmk

[stuartcharles]

You are right, the insurance shares would have to expire or new customers would subsidize old customers.

Ive been busy with family and day job but had an hour to spend catching up. Every where i look i see great work, just wanted to say thank you.

[bytemaster]

You are right, the insurance shares would have to expire or new customers would subsidize old customers.
 

[gamey]

I don't understand this.

So when the pool pays out above expectation and is short on funds, what is the incentive for people to buy more shares ?  They will be carrying the weight of the people who have already bought shares, but for whom there is no longer corresponding funds.  (Correct ? )

Why wouldn't new customers go to a newly freshly made DAC that doesn't have a lot of shares on the books with no corresponding value ?

Because of this behavior this mutual aid society would more vaguely resemble a pyramid scheme.  It assumes there will be fresh customers who do not act in their owe economic interest.

I also am doubtful that you could ever create a prediction market around individual adjusters that would be accurate.  How would that work?  The sharp participants call up the adjuster's family to make sure everything is going ok ?  You can't put everything in a prediction market and just expect participants... It is likely the fraud produced by an adjuster could mitigate the reputation by funding his own stock.

I don't want to be a smart ass, but I would rather bitshares finds more workable markets. 

Maybe I misunderstand this, but it seemed to me the idea is to buy shares one time and have them good for life.  The problem is early adopters get insurance/service for the full life and those who buy in later do not.  This is why you have premiums and you buy per risk per unit time.  That is just how it works.  The Shares need to cancel themselves after a certain time or your underlying economic model is flawed.

[bytemaster]

regardless what you call, you are still:

A. accepting liability thus guaranteeing payment in case of loss or damage
B. Gambling on an outcome

For this to be a sustainable profitable business and not a "game of chance", an "educated guess" is required. That would require actuarial tables and decision support beyond the scope of the DAC.

Even then, you would suffer from "negative selection", granting coverage to those most likely the highest risk. To spread the risk and stay solvent, you would need to attract a broader universe comprised mostly of those not needing or seeking you.

Insurance premiums are more about managing risk and less about market forces and chance.

This would not make profit from the insurance aspect (only from transaction fees).    The actuarial tables would be public for all participants to know whether or not to buy.     Negative selection is only an issue when insurance is based upon the Obamacare principles of 'everyone in one pot'... the reality is that each pool should be specific enough that there is no significant risk variation between members.    This is perhaps the most important thing.  If you had a health insurance policy that only contained 'white, non-smoking, 20 year old males who don't do drugs, drink, and weigh less than 200lbs'  then the premium would be very low.  If you start throwing in fat, drug abusing, 40 year old pregnant women into that same insurance pool then you would have the negative selection bias.      For this reason the 40 year old drug abusers would be on their own plan and pay a much higher premium. 

[unimercio]

  regardless what you call, you are still:

A. accepting liability thus guaranteeing payment in case of loss or damage
B. Gambling on an outcome

For this to be a sustainable profitable business and not a "game of chance", an "educated guess" is required. That would require actuarial tables and decision support beyond the scope of the DAC.

Even then, you would suffer from "negative selection", granting coverage to those most likely the highest risk. To spread the risk and stay solvent, you would need to attract a broader universe comprised mostly of those not needing or seeking you.

Insurance premiums are more about managing risk and less about market forces and chance.

[CWEvans]

As Bytemaster points out above, this is not just for the USA and the EU. This kind of thing could work in the international medical tourism field.

[phoenix]

Would the MAS have relationships with the medical industry to transact the payments of claims? Or would the MAS simply pay the shareholder the relevant amount and not deal with any third parities?

It wouldn't have any built-in mechanisms for dealing with third parties, but eventually hospitals might start considering this a valid form of insurance, and then they might want to develop their own interface for verifying insurance amounts. Hospitals might even become adjusters, since they know exactly how much your claim is really worth.

[bitcoinba]

Would the MAS have relationships with the medical industry to transact the payments of claims? Or would the MAS simply pay the shareholder the relevant amount and not deal with any third parities?

[CWEvans]

Most people will be paid out immediately because even with normal insurance the claims can be paid from revenue on average. 

One way of addressing this is through deductibles. If the MAS is set up to cover members for catastrophic events with high deductibles, then only rare events above a certain cost will be covered, which will give the MAS time to collect member contributions.

Also, once credit DACs become available, injured parties might be able to borrow from them and repay with MAS payouts over subsequent periods.

[bytemaster]

I don't think you fully appreciate the model.  Most people will be paid out immediately because even with normal insurance the claims can be paid from revenue on average. 


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[wasthatawolf]

Note: if the claim is valid, then the risk was there the whole time and the guy who was buying 20% of the insurance was subsidizing everyone else.  Also note, that you will eventually receive your payout as the long-run averages are all that matter.

Most of these things are just tweaks to the basic framework.

It's a mute point whether the guy with 20% of the insurance DAC shares was subsidizing everyone else because it's still an additional, and significant, risk that I as a potential customer would need to consider before buying a policy in this system.

With your model, the traditional insurance policy workflow is essentially reversed. 

If I want prompt payment of my coverage once I file my claim, I would need to pay a much higher premium (buy more shares) all at once instead of buying them over time.  This kind of defeats the whole purpose of insurance.  When I'm insuring something I want my coverage to be paid out immediately if I file a valid claim.  I don't want to be paid out slowly over time, I want to pay IN slowly over time.  While I could eventually accumulate enough shares by buying them over time, theres a long initial period before I can accumulate a significant portion of shares. 

Any good insurance company pays out claims immediately and has a good legal team that goes through subrogation to recover any funds that were claimed fraudulently.  They also mitigate their own risk by buying reinsurance on the policies they write. 

I don't know how your model will be able to compete with conventional insurance.  Policy holders would, at the very least, need an additional outside policy to supplement their claim amount while it's slowly being paid out by the DAC.

[Empirical1]

What about a fixed term insurance DAC that doesn't need a third party to adjudicate claims?
You can make your insurance claim whenever you want without needing to give a reason.

Possibly work using a Keyhotee risk profile, a separate premium that goes into the no claims bonus fund and share claim system.

1. Your Keyhotee risk profile

It determines based on available information, how risky/safe you are.
If you join a fixed term insurance product and claim early it effects your future risk profile negatively and vice versa.
(If you are risky you may not be able to join a good pool, you may have to pay a higher * no claims bonus pot premium and you may have a minimum period in which you cannot make your claim.)

2. The separate premium is a fee that is calculated on your risk profile that goes into a separate no claims bonus pot.
People who did not claim during the period get to split this pot up at the end of the period as well as any money remaining in the pool.  (When you make a claim you forfeit any fees paid into this bonus pot.)

3. A share allocation system as opposed to a guaranteed $ payout.
(So that is hard to defraud the system and so that the insurance pool never runs dry.)

Example: If you would have paid in $10 000 over the life of the product then you can claim 10 000 shares whenever you want at which point you are cashed out from the product.

Lets say the monthly premium is $100 and there are a 100 people in the pool at the end of the month there will be 10 000 shares and $10 000 in the pool. If you make a claim you will be issued 9900 shares (you already have 100 from first months premium) However there are now 20 000 shares and a $10 000 pool so you claim will only net $5000.)

(You might be thinking well a $5000 return for a $100 premium sounds great, everyone will fraudently claim after the first month...
Lets say 70 people make a claim in the first month. (You never know how many people have made a claim in the specific claim period so the system can't be gamed.) Then there would be about 710 000 shares and a $10 000 pot. Meaning each pay out would only be worth $140.

Clearly the above would be a very fraudulent pool. So they may have had to pay a 50% 1st month additional premium ($50 in that example, so they would actually lose by claiming in the first month. In subsequent months the additional premium may fall to 20% or even as low as 5% depending on your risk profile.)


Using something like this you should be able to get a fair payout.
(The only disadvantage would be if you had no reputation, you would be put in a weak pool and if you were forced to make a genuine claim early, you would probably receive a low payout and a bad reputation.)

In this system, the fraudulents would be weeded out early on in the life-cycle of the product and they probably wouldn't make a big gain, maybe even a loss and the system could also be designed so that after about mid-way you would be better off not making a claim as your share of the no claims pot would make not claiming more profitable as well as earning a good reputation/risk profile. (Also after you had been in a few products you would probably be put in a very honest pool so that if you needed to make a claim early you would receive a decent payout.)

(Also the funds may go into a variety of Bitassets that would hopefully appreciate over time making not claiming and getting your hands on part of that bonus pot at the end of the term period more attractive.)

[JakeThePanda]

We build tech for the world and not just the us.


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I believe every country has heavy insurance regulations, not just the US.  Please enlighten me on why you think this won't be a problem?  Trust me, I hope you have a solution.

What aspect of insurance is regulated?   Is it the taking of funds?  The investing of funds?  The estimating?   Remember, this system is no more an 'insurance company' than Bitcoin is a currency.    Who is providing the insurance?   Who is promising to pay?  Who under this system has any obligations what so ever of a contractual nature that would constitute insurance?

Like I said, I'm not an expert.  I used to sell fixed income products and one of my clients was a small insurance company.  They had legal restrictions on what products they can invest in.  You also need a license to sell insurance by state.  Look, I don't know enough about insurance and it sounds like you don't want to hear any of this.  As a AGS/PTS holder I hope you can work it out, but don't think it's going to work for liability insurance.  I will move along.

[CWEvans]

The model is similar to fraternal societies and lodges that were very popular until the establishment of the social welfare society.

"From Mutual Aid to Welfare State"

[santaclause102]

one question there: At the end of the video it was said that every insurance you can buy shares in is for a specific risk group (e.g. white males non smoking etc....) only? So there would have to be seperate insuracne DACs/Pools  for all kinds of risk groups?

[bitcoinba]

We build tech for the world and not just the us.


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I believe every country has heavy insurance regulations, not just the US.  Please enlighten me on why you think this won't be a problem?  Trust me, I hope you have a solution.

What aspect of insurance is regulated?   Is it the taking of funds?  The investing of funds?  The estimating?   Remember, this system is no more an 'insurance company' than Bitcoin is a currency.    Who is providing the insurance?   Who is promising to pay?  Who under this system has any obligations what so ever of a contractual nature that would constitute insurance?

I wondered if it might be an idea to think of another name, i.e. not "insurance". If its a fundamentally different system, it maybe deserves a new name, but in so doing this may lead to the natural creation of an appropriately different regulatory framework outside that of classic insurance. As no doubt, someone somewhere will start to try to regulate it. For many people, the word insurance has a negative connotation, so this was another reason for this suggestion.

It think Bytemaster already gave it another name: Mutual Aid Society.

This name has some interesting connotations and could serve it well.

[pgbit]

We build tech for the world and not just the us.


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I believe every country has heavy insurance regulations, not just the US.  Please enlighten me on why you think this won't be a problem?  Trust me, I hope you have a solution.

What aspect of insurance is regulated?   Is it the taking of funds?  The investing of funds?  The estimating?   Remember, this system is no more an 'insurance company' than Bitcoin is a currency.    Who is providing the insurance?   Who is promising to pay?  Who under this system has any obligations what so ever of a contractual nature that would constitute insurance?

I wondered if it might be an idea to think of another name, i.e. not "insurance". If its a fundamentally different system, it maybe deserves a new name, but in so doing this may lead to the natural creation of an appropriately different regulatory framework outside that of classic insurance. As no doubt, someone somewhere will start to try to regulate it. For many people, the word insurance has a negative connotation, so this was another reason for this suggestion.

[bytemaster]

We build tech for the world and not just the us.


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I believe every country has heavy insurance regulations, not just the US.  Please enlighten me on why you think this won't be a problem?  Trust me, I hope you have a solution.

What aspect of insurance is regulated?   Is it the taking of funds?  The investing of funds?  The estimating?   Remember, this system is no more an 'insurance company' than Bitcoin is a currency.    Who is providing the insurance?   Who is promising to pay?  Who under this system has any obligations what so ever of a contractual nature that would constitute insurance? 

[JakeThePanda]

We build tech for the world and not just the us.


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I believe every country has heavy insurance regulations, not just the US.  Please enlighten me on why you think this won't be a problem?  Trust me, I hope you have a solution.

[bitbro]

What if we all live in the us but the adjuster lives in Thailand?


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[luckybit]

I'm sorry to doubt the DAC but I have to make this comment.  Gov'ts can block this DAC very easily .... Just make it illegal to be an insurance DAC adjuster. How do we adapt?


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Unless every government on earth blocks it at the same time why does it matter?
Do we even have to know who the adjuster is or where the adjuster is if we know who it is?

[bytemaster]

We build tech for the world and not just the us.


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[biophil]

Isn't insurance a heavily regulated industry here in the US?  Won't you need DMV approval for car insurance and I'm sure other types of insurances have regulations, no?  I'm not an expert on insurance so I'm just throwing questions out there.

My guess is that in heavily regulated countries like the US, if this operates legally, it would have to be set up as something like a non-profit co-operative. Co-ops are fantastic ways to circumvent certain types of regulations. Of course, just because it's legal doesn't mean it's easy to convince regulators that, for example, DAC health insurance fulfills the PACA individual mandate. Actually, I think health co-ops do count towards the mandate, so maybe there's already a legal precedent.

[JakeThePanda]

Isn't insurance a heavily regulated industry here in the US?  Won't you need DMV approval for car insurance and I'm sure other types of insurances have regulations, no?  I'm not an expert on insurance so I'm just throwing questions out there, but it seem like a lot of red tape to go through.

[bitbro]

I'm sorry to doubt the DAC but I have to make this comment.  Gov'ts can block this DAC very easily .... Just make it illegal to be an insurance DAC adjuster. How do we adapt?


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[bytemaster]

A big potential problem is share distribution and its effect on the claim pool.  Since ownership of shares in the DAC insurance policy is anonymous, how can I as a consumer trust that my risk exposure won't fluctuate wildly if someone who holds a significant portion of shares has a large but valid claim. 

For example, say the claim pool is around 5% of total, on average.  I buy shares expecting ~20x their BitUSD value in return if I need to make a claim.  Then someone holding 20% of the total shares makes a valid claim which is then added to the claim pool.  That 5% jumps to 25% and now if I need to file a claim then the maximum I can expect is ~4x the BitUSD value of the shares.

Insurance is all about mitigating risk and traditionally when you buy a policy you know what your premium is as well as the maximum claim amount so you can quantify your risk exposure for the asset that's insured.  With this Insurance DAC, while your premium is fixed, the maximum payout has the potential to fluctuate wildly which is counter intuitive to the entire purpose of buying insurance in the first place.

I suspect that this is easily mitigated by defining the terms of the policy.  For example, it could price things at 1 share per month per person with defined per-person limits.  The adjustor would then be responsible for preventing bogus claims.

Note: if the claim is valid, then the risk was there the whole time and the guy who was buying 20% of the insurance was subsidizing everyone else.  Also note, that you will eventually receive your payout as the long-run averages are all that matter.

Most of these things are just tweaks to the basic framework.

[wasthatawolf]

A big potential problem is share distribution and its effect on the claim pool.  Since ownership of shares in the DAC insurance policy is anonymous, how can I as a consumer trust that my risk exposure won't fluctuate wildly if someone who holds a significant portion of shares has a large but valid claim. 

For example, say the claim pool is around 5% of total, on average.  I buy shares expecting ~20x their BitUSD value in return if I need to make a claim.  Then someone holding 20% of the total shares makes a valid claim which is then added to the claim pool.  That 5% jumps to 25% and now if I need to file a claim then the maximum I can expect is ~4x the BitUSD value of the shares.

Insurance is all about mitigating risk and traditionally when you buy a policy you know what your premium is as well as the maximum claim amount so you can quantify your risk exposure for the asset that's insured.  With this Insurance DAC, while your premium is fixed, the maximum payout has the potential to fluctuate wildly which is counter intuitive to the entire purpose of buying insurance in the first place.

[phoenix]

I haven't quite understood the task of the risk adjuster as described in the video. If the adjuster pays out alot in a month how will this affect their trust rating? Surely in a 'bad' month or a hurricane season there may be good reasons for mass payouts. How will the volatility in payouts that therefore may result - for the same type of claim - be addressed? Is there a planned trust rating system for those taking out insurance?

My understanding is that the risk adjuster is responsible for validating claims, and the payout that is due. A good adjuster should be able to show that he is being honest, and so his prediction market should remain stable even if he has to make a lot of payouts.

[pgbit]

I haven't quite understood the task of the risk adjuster as described in the video. If the adjuster pays out alot in a month how will this affect their trust rating? Surely in a 'bad' month or a hurricane season there may be good reasons for mass payouts. How will the volatility in payouts that therefore may result - for the same type of claim - be addressed? Is there a planned trust rating system for those taking out insurance?

[fuzzy]

For those who think Bytemaster doesn't pay attention to your ideas...
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=835.0

It seems sometimes he takes the community's ideas and substantially improves them...

<asskissing> Wonderful job so far </asskissing>

Post your ideas to the Alternative DACs Section here:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?board=9.0

Keep it up!  We need as much of that kind of kissing as we can get!

lol...as you can see, I am liberal in both application of ass kissing and criticism so consider it well deserved.

[Stan]

For those who think Bytemaster doesn't pay attention to your ideas...
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=835.0

It seems sometimes he takes the community's ideas and substantially improves them...

<asskissing> Wonderful job so far </asskissing>

Post your ideas to the Alternative DACs Section here:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?board=9.0

Keep it up!  We need as much of that kind of kissing as we can get!

[fuzzy]

Shareholders in the DAC make a profit from transaction fees.

How exactly does this happen without mining/forging?  Transactions as Proof of Stake seems like it is still going to pay out to individuals for running something on the client side.  Really trying to understand this part.

[fuzzy]

For those who think Bytemaster doesn't pay attention to your ideas...
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=835.0

It seems sometimes he takes the community's ideas and substantially improves them...

<asskissing> Wonderful job so far </asskissing>

Post your ideas to the Alternative DACs Section here:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?board=9.0

[bytemaster]

Shareholders in the DAC make a profit from transaction fees.

[luckybit]

I think waiting a month to start receiving payout is to long, perhaps it could be shorter if the adjuster has had a good reputation for a very long time? Also, how do the shareholders in the DAC make a profit?

I could give you a payout as a loan and then you give me a percentage of your payout a month later. The closer it is to your payout date the better my price would be for you, like a pay day loan.

[blackbeard]

I imagine the hardest part to implement  in a decentralized identity/reputation system is how to protect against sybil attacks. Whats to stop me from creating 1000 fake "accounts" and giving the target adjuster shitty reviews?

Anybody can advertise the adjuster in a positive or negative light anywhere, not just in the DAC's forum page. But in order to actually affect how much they can spend you have to actually affect the adjuster's prediction market.

Ah let me see if I understand what you mean. Let's say that I want to be an adjuster. I create a coin called "bitBeard" to represent my adjusting firm. As people trust me they will purchase more shares in bitBeard which will drive my price up. If I'm on the right track this logic seems to say that my prediction market will go up if I can turn turn a profit. Turning a profit doesn't mean that I'm honest

But if you turn away to many claims, then people will start to complain about you, and your prediction market will fall, while your competitors rise.

Prediction markets ebb and flow regardless of the asset being traded. Look at bitcoin, price dropped but it was because of mtGoX, not because of bitcoin itself

[phoenix]

I imagine the hardest part to implement  in a decentralized identity/reputation system is how to protect against sybil attacks. Whats to stop me from creating 1000 fake "accounts" and giving the target adjuster shitty reviews?

Anybody can advertise the adjuster in a positive or negative light anywhere, not just in the DAC's forum page. But in order to actually affect how much they can spend you have to actually affect the adjuster's prediction market.

Ah let me see if I understand what you mean. Let's say that I want to be an adjuster. I create a coin called "bitBeard" to represent my adjusting firm. As people trust me they will purchase more shares in bitBeard which will drive my price up. If I'm on the right track this logic seems to say that my prediction market will go up if I can turn turn a profit. Turning a profit doesn't mean that I'm honest

But if you turn away to many claims, then people will start to complain about you, and your prediction market will fall, while your competitors rise.

[blackbeard]

I imagine the hardest part to implement  in a decentralized identity/reputation system is how to protect against sybil attacks. Whats to stop me from creating 1000 fake "accounts" and giving the target adjuster shitty reviews?

Anybody can advertise the adjuster in a positive or negative light anywhere, not just in the DAC's forum page. But in order to actually affect how much they can spend you have to actually affect the adjuster's prediction market.

Ah let me see if I understand what you mean. Let's say that I want to be an adjuster. I create a coin called "bitBeard" to represent my adjusting firm. As people trust me they will purchase more shares in bitBeard which will drive my price up. If I'm on the right track this logic seems to say that my prediction market will go up if I can turn turn a profit. Turning a profit doesn't mean that I'm honest

[phoenix]

I imagine the hardest part to implement  in a decentralized identity/reputation system is how to protect against sybil attacks. Whats to stop me from creating 1000 fake "accounts" and giving the target adjuster shitty reviews?

Anybody can advertise the adjuster in a positive or negative light anywhere, not just in the DAC's forum page. But in order to actually affect how much they can spend you have to actually affect the adjuster's prediction market.

[phoenix]

I think waiting a month to start receiving payout is to long, perhaps it could be shorter if the adjuster has had a good reputation for a very long time? Also, how do the shareholders in the DAC make a profit?

[biophil]

I imagine the hardest part to implement  in a decentralized identity/reputation system is how to protect against sybil attacks. Whats to stop me from creating 1000 fake "accounts" and giving the target adjuster shitty reviews?

Yeah, establishing an identity needs to be costly. According to my vague understanding this is part of what Keyhotee does, right?

[blackbeard]

I imagine the hardest part to implement  in a decentralized identity/reputation system is how to protect against sybil attacks. Whats to stop me from creating 1000 fake "accounts" and giving the target adjuster shitty reviews?

[bytemaster]

This is a very brilliant idea however still not sure how you'll keep the Adjustor honest.
Let say that my buddy the Insurance Adjustor award me a false claim of  20000$ insurance witch of course then I split it whit him. How can anyone know that this is a fraud ? Say I will do my best to make it look as real as possible except is not. How can you control this kind of fraud ?

You cannot stop all fraud, but then again neither can traditional insurance companies.   However, it only takes one screw up to ruin the business.

[oco101]

This is a very brilliant idea however still not sure how you'll keep the Adjustor honest.
Let say that my buddy the Insurance Adjustor award me a false claim of  20000$ insurance witch of course then I split it whit him. How can anyone know that this is a fraud ? Say I will do my best to make it look as real as possible except is not. How can you control this kind of fraud ?
 

[CWEvans]

Bytemaster I have to take my hat off to you. This idea could change society for the better and is even bigger than Bitshares.

Credit and insurance are two things that those of us in OECD member states take for granted that something like 6 billion humans do not have access to. If BitInsurance—or whatever it is called—reaches only 0.1% of them, that's still 6 million served.

Why can't we start with this community? We'll all join in and find out if it works in practice.
Isn't that the purpose of our community? To help develop and test these new DACs?

I think we should be bold and go straight for health insurance. We all will grow old someday and we will all need it. The other insurance we will all need is something to protect us from theft. You and I both know that theft is a major concern and will only get worse.

If not conventional health insurance, maybe medical tourism.

Recently, I met with some of the Haitian diaspora here in Miami, who are really jazzed about the BitMusic thing, in large measure because some very popular musicians in Haiti do not have enough money to go to the hospital when they are injured.

When I was thinking about economic allegiance systems I was thinking that this is one of the sort of things you could do. I think insurance is really just the tip of the iceberg really for the kinds of organizations you can build.

We have to start somewhere though and insurance is a great place to start.

Insurance and credit. Crack those two nuts, and the idea of the Developing World could become as anachronistic as the horseless carriage.

[luckybit]

http://vimeo.com/user24356268/review/88861284/1789918b92

Bytemaster I have to take my hat off to you. This idea could change society for the better and is even bigger than Bitshares. Bitshares is viewed by some people as just another "bank" or "get rich quick". This idea is the kind of killer app that anyone should want, peer to peer insurance or mutual benefit societies.

How will this DAC be created? Will it require investment through Angelshares or what? I think this DAC is also a killer app because people want a way to insure their Bitcoins and other things like that too after Mt Gox. Anyway I can't wait to sign up.

This is an awesome idea in theory - but would be very complex to put in to practice. I would suggest before attempting to take on car or health insurance something much simpler be attempted first to get the ball rolling. Perhaps flight cancellation insurance. Maybe simple term life insurance for a young couple starting a family (although the regulatory hurdles might be daunting.

Or are you thinking of the mutual aid society as being a very small homogeneous group where everyone is known to each other? (a church group, neighborhood benevolent society, etc)?

I intuit as being extremely difficult to start on any large scale.

That's the beauty of it. Once the code is released, let a thousand BitBlossoms bloom.

Fraternities can issue exam insurance for their members. Small-scale international traders can issue vendor or bribe insurance. Gamers can issue orc insurance.

Like Zombo.com, the only limit is your imagination.

Why can't we start with this community? We'll all join in and find out if it works in practice.
Isn't that the purpose of our community? To help develop and test these new DACs?

I think we should be bold and go straight for health insurance. We all will grow old someday and we will all need it. The other insurance we will all need is something to protect us from theft. You and I both know that theft is a major concern and will only get worse.

So if we lose some coins due to an exchange getting hacked this insurance could help.

This is an awesome idea in theory - but would be very complex to put in to practice. I would suggest before attempting to take on car or health insurance something much simpler be attempted first to get the ball rolling. Perhaps flight cancellation insurance. Maybe simple term life insurance for a young couple starting a family (although the regulatory hurdles might be daunting.

Or are you thinking of the mutual aid society as being a very small homogeneous group where everyone is known to each other? (a church group, neighborhood benevolent society, etc)?

I intuit as being extremely difficult to start on any large scale.

That's the beauty of it. Once the code is released, let a thousand BitBlossoms bloom.

Fraternities can issue exam insurance for their members. Small-scale international traders can issue vendor or bribe insurance. Gamers can issue orc insurance.

Like Zombo.com, the only limit is your imagination.

I completely agree. When I was thinking about economic allegiance systems I was thinking that this is one of the sort of things you could do. I think insurance is really just the tip of the iceberg really for the kinds of organizations you can build.

We have to start somewhere though and insurance is a great place to start.

[CWEvans]

This is an awesome idea in theory - but would be very complex to put in to practice. I would suggest before attempting to take on car or health insurance something much simpler be attempted first to get the ball rolling. Perhaps flight cancellation insurance. Maybe simple term life insurance for a young couple starting a family (although the regulatory hurdles might be daunting.

Or are you thinking of the mutual aid society as being a very small homogeneous group where everyone is known to each other? (a church group, neighborhood benevolent society, etc)?

I intuit as being extremely difficult to start on any large scale.

That's the beauty of it. Once the code is released, let a thousand BitBlossoms bloom.

Fraternities can issue exam insurance for their members. Small-scale international traders can issue vendor or bribe insurance. Gamers can issue orc insurance.

Like Zombo.com, the only limit is your imagination.

[CLains]

Very cool idea.

I'm also curious about what the best MVP is for this idea.

[CrazyCriple]

What if my Buddy is an adjustor and I make small claims from different users and he just pays me this claims every now and then under the cover off real ones?

[blackbeard]

Are there any more resources on how the reputation system would work for the adjuster? The promise of a distributed/decentralized identity and reputation system is one of the reasons I get out of bed every day.

[onceuponatime]

This is an awesome idea in theory - but would be very complex to put in to practice. I would suggest before attempting to take on car or health insurance something much simpler be attempted first to get the ball rolling. Perhaps flight cancellation insurance. Maybe simple term life insurance for a young couple starting a family (although the regulatory hurdles might be daunting.

Or are you thinking of the mutual aid society as being a very small homogeneous group where everyone is known to each other? (a church group, neighborhood benevolent society, etc)?

I intuit as being extremely difficult to start on any large scale.

[bytemaster]

http://vimeo.com/user24356268/review/88861284/1789918b92