To continue the trend of blogging about recent discussions I’ve had, I want to talk about insurance. The way I see it, insurance is gambling. If you buy insurance, you are betting that bad things will happen. Personally I would buy very little insurance (except when playing The Game of Life), but I do not think insurance, or any gambling, should be outlawed. What I am against is government mandated insurance purchasing. I see it as no different than the government forcing everyone to go to the casino and shove money into slot machines.
Regardless of what I think about insurance, this got me thinking about a new idea, reverse insurance. If I can make a bet that bad things will happen, why can’t I make a bet that bad things won’t happen? There should be a place I can bet money and get a better return than any savings account, certificate of deposit or savings bond. However, if something bad ever happens to me, they take away a bunch of my money. Good times would be better and bad times would be worse. Since most of my life is good times, this is a great bet for me.
People who defend insurance as a worthwhile investment say things like “bad things will happen eventually” or “better safe than sorry”. You know what? The reality is that bad things probably won’t happen. If the reverse was true, insurance companies would be losing money, not making it. If bad things were more likely, then insurance companies would have to pay out to most of their customers very often. Since premiums are lower than payouts, this scenario would quickly make insurance companies bankrupt.
Think of it like this. You go to a casino to play roullette. They let you make a bet on 0 or 00 because most of the time, you will lose. They even let you bet on red, black even and odd because you will still lose about 51% of the time due to the existence of 0 and 00. They wont let you make a bet on “not 00” because you would win most of the time. Buying insurance like betting on 00 over and over again. Reverse insurance is betting on “not 00”. Which would you bet on?
Wait a minute, it just came to me. When you bet on 00 it’s the same as the casino betting on “not 00”. When you bet on insurance it’s the insurance company that is betting on reverse insurance. The way to buy reverse insurance is to sell regular insurance. Insurance companies are the only people betting on reverse insurance, and they’re winning a fortune. Not only do they have enough money to fix all the bad things that happen to everybody, but they can buy luxurious lifestyles for many of their employees.
How can you seriously say that insurance is a good bet when the people making the reverse bet are ludicrously wealthy? Insurance companies are loaded with cash while insurance buyers are so poor that they need insurance to dig themselves out when bad things happen. If insurance really were a good bet, the opposite would be true. If there are people out there willing to bet on insurance, then I should be allowed to bet against them. It really bothers me that the government forces me to be stupid and bet right along with them.
I think the only course of action for me is to start an insurance agency. If you disagree with what’s in this blog post, then I think I might be able to interest you in one of our policies. You give me a pile of money every few months, and I will use that money to make more money by investing it in various ways. If disaster ever strikes, I’ll use some of my vast riches to help you out. Any takers?
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