The Economics of Insurance | The Marginal Revolution Podcast

[@BobMurphyAncap]

Great episode guys!

[@biggieboomboom]

24:00 Tyler mentions how you need insurable interest with life insurance; that's true for purchasing insurance from a carrier, but you can still sell your life insurance, once initially purchased, to third parties who have no insurable interest. This has been a market for quite some time, called Life Settlements, and it has given rise to an alternative asset class that is uncorrelated from normal investments.

[@antigonid]

These conversations are so damn good

[@DanHowardMtl]

I find it cute how they can excited by this topic! Plus Tyler sent me off to listen to Charles Ives! :)

[@Efficienado]

Great episode

[@kelpeyehelp]

Good discussion thank you

[@thinkingcitizen]

FYI - life insurance in many ancient Indian kingdoms , there’s an early Sanskrit word for it- yogakshema

[@gabrielrodriguez821]

I was listening to a incident of shipping insurance fraud in ancient Rome during the 1st Punic war where two guys were buying insurance on shipping freight they never put on ships, then scuddled the ships to collect the money on the non-existence goods. Eventually, they got exposed, but i guess my point is how old insurance and subsequently insurance fraud is.

[@赐福-f4w]

The more decentralized state by state regulation in the US actually seems better and safer than the bank regulations. The insurance industry has had by far less systemic crashes than banking.

[@authenticallysuperficial9874]

It's a system of massive, massive fraud. Especially in certain states.

[@joshuaphillips4604]

"Life insurance company pushes polyamory as part of their business model" Is a funny implication of some of the discussion here.

[@Zach-h3h]

Why is the health insurance market obviously not working properly, 500 dollars for basic health insurance is too much, given all the variables. In Europe people pay 150 per month for basic health care insurance, so it is possible.

[@pbrown0829]

Because it’s not a free market or anywhere close to it. So heavily regulated the market is incredibly distorted

[@authenticallysuperficial9874]

It's not even actual insurance.

[@righteousmammon9011]

Yeah but Europeans also make about 1/3 or less than Americans. So for a European, 150 is essentially 500 to an American

[@righteousmammon9011]

@@Zach-h3h it is right man. My wife is German and I’m American. I love visiting Europe so don’t think I’m trying to talk badly about the region, but it is true. My wife makes 3x more money in America than in Germany and taxes are so much less. Germany spends 13% of GDP on Healthcare, America spends 16% - it’s really not that much difference. I’d rather pay 3% more for healthcare and make more money and pay less taxes. Average income in EU is 26,136 euros per year. Average income in America $66,621.80. Do a Google search and look up “median disposable income by country” - US is first, followed by Luxembourg and Switzerland. Germany is 4 and EU average is 15

[@Zach-h3h]

@@authenticallysuperficial9874 Why not?

[@Zach-h3h]

*Look at The Netherlands for example

[@authenticallysuperficial9874]

Ew. Statist empiricists chatting about insurance.