Not long ago, an overseas acquaintance in the insurance industry told me that the sector gets a bad rap, which is unfair because without insurance available, people wouldn't be able to do many of things they need to, and he explained his premise in this way, insurance "allows people and businesses to transfer their personal risk onto others, fundamentally changing their lives and their own ability to take a risk in order to achieve a better standard of living."
Thus, what he was basically saying is this; "Insurance is a fundamental concept for all developed societies." Okay, I get that, and still, we have a problem in modern societies with the incestuous relationship "lobbyists" between government and the insurance sector, so much of the "fundamental nature" of the insurance sector is not due to need as much as "forced laws" on the citizenry, thus, it is causing an "over-all" tax on the production, flow of money, and costs of doing business.
So, let's be brutally honest here. I am not against the insurance sector and agree with him for the most part, but I also see some challenges too. Additionally, what about the problems in the insurance sector such as; annuity fraud where companies filed bankruptcy after selling huge numbers of contracts and paying huge commissions? And what about the reality that the insurance sector was an enabler of sorts causing the Global Financial Crisis?
My acquaintance stated that over regulation in the insurance sector was causing some of the problems too, but one could say that the over regulation didn't stop AIG's London Office from running away with the CDO insurance market. My acquaintance is a big proponent of innovation in the insurance sector so that it can continue to enable people and businesses, even government from doing more and streamlining the flows of civilization by re-assigning risk.
Still, I asked him if he was worried about too much innovation in the sector. Some people say that the Banking Industry should be boring, not too innovative to prevent bubbles and collapse, what about the insurance industry, is that statement still apropos? Perhaps it is.
Now then, am I suggesting that the insurance industry needs more regulation? No, because there's already too much regulation, and that's part of the problem. Further, there were regulations in place, and there have been regulations in place to stop all these problems, but those regulations didn't work.
They didn't work because they are being usurped due to the incestuous relationship between big industry insurance companies, and big government. If we can just get everyone out of the way long enough, maybe those insurance companies really could enable the people, and the businesses, and even the government agencies to help reassign those risks, thus, allowing the free-market insurance companies to organize and spread that risk out so everyone could participate on a level playing field.
Do I think that's going to happen?
Are there dinosaurs on Mars?
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Corporate Business Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
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