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Kidnapping insurance keeps a lid on ransom inflation
- sergiotapia 8y agoThat website is TERRIBLE to read. Please fix your UX! https://streamable.com/q8xu0 https://streamable.com/q8xu0
- hkchad 8y agoJust be happy you weren't on mobile trying to read that abomination of a website.
- sergiotapia 8y agoI can't imagine haha - can you post a screenshot now I'm curious
- dang 8y agoPlease don't use allcaps for emphasis on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gruez 8y agoclosing the two modals is too hard?
- 21 8y agoSomewhat related: http://graphics.wsj.com/hostage/ http://graphics.wsj.com/hostage/
- matte_black 8y agoAw great, this is only going to cause MORE kidnappings since thieves will know they can get insurance money.
- kurthr 8y agoAnd if the insurance companies are limited to a % of paid claims... then they are incentivised to increase the payout and/or # kidnappings. That's a recipe for disaster just like the medical market.
- underwater 8y agoThe insurers have been paid in advance. They pay the ransom from their coffers, so are incentivised to reduce the cost as well as keep customers (not fuck to the recovery).
- matte_black 8y agoBut then interests aren’t aligned. What if the insurance company denies your claim?
- steve19 8y agoBefore K&R insurers got together, firms and wealthy families were paying badly negotiated sky high ransoms. Now professionals negotiators with ice running through their veins negotiate much better "deals" and also reduce the risk of death by two thirds. Much lower ransoms should mean kidnapping is less profitable and so supply should decrease (of kidnappings).
- ca98am79 8y agoif no one paid, there would be no more kidnappings for ransom
- true_religion 8y agoPeople are inclined to pay ransoms, so you would have to make it illegal to pay ransom, which would make a disincentive to reporting kidnappings to the police as kidnappers want.
- Overtonwindow 8y agoWhere there is kidnapping insurance, the kidnappers are going to know this in advance, and everyone involved will be the same players over and over. It’s a racket.
- DennisP 8y agoExcept the insurance policy on a person is cancelled if word gets out that they have it.
- mc32 8y agoWouldn't certain class of people have a greater propensity of buying this type of insurance. Probably some decent overlap with the kinds of people kidnappers target in the first place?
- jkaplowitz 8y agoThat differential can be accounted for in the premium, either on an individually underwritten basis or averaged across the risk pool.
- daveFNbuck 8y agoThat's probably why some of the insurance policies require things like curfews and private security.
- rdl 8y agoThe war zone policies often mandated inherently unsafe things (movement only in high-profile armored vehicles, with light security, concentration of protected persons in specific places) when those things were actually by that time less safe than alternatives (low profile vehicles, dispersion).
- daveFNbuck 8y agoPresumably these companies would be at a competitive disadvantage to insurance companies that are better at mitigating risk. How are they able to stay in business while requiring unsafe behavior?
- rdl 8y agoWhen I lived/worked in a high-risk kidnapping environment, I ever got K&R insurance. What I wanted was "retribution insurance" -- some plan which would guarantee some people would investigate and kill everyone in any substantial way affiliated with the kidnapping -- and to loudly communicate the existence of this policy in advance. Being recovered would be great, but having kidnappings deterred entirely would be even better. US citizenship largely serves this purpose, at least if it's a high profile kidnapping (which any kidnapping in Iraq/Afghanistan/etc. would have been.)
- jerguismi 8y agoI'm not sure if that would be an effective way to get kidnappings deterred. There are varied policies on kidnappings, discussed here: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/01/548032302/episode-792-the-ransom-problem https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/01/548032302/epis... Interestingly the "no ransoms" policy seems to be quite problematic.
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- leonroy 8y ago> US citizenship largely serves this purpose, at least if it's a high profile kidnapping (which any kidnapping in Iraq/Afghanistan/etc. would have been.) Seems it's a double edged sword being a US or indeed a UK or European citizen in places like Iraq/Afghanistan. On the one hand yes your government is a force to be reckoned with, on the other hand it makes you a huge target. I do however recall reading about the British Empire, where a British botanist was kidnapped by a tribe in Africa. The British army turned up and pounded the hills where the tribe were rumoured to be living with cannon balls continuously for a week. The botanist was let go. Things of course have changed now...I doubt the US or UK government could say to a kidnapper today 'alright we're going to drop artillery on your neighbourhood until you let our guy go'.
- 8y ago
- chaostheory 8y agoMost places, where kidnappings happen often, have the same result: victims end up dead regardless of a paid ransom and not notifying police. The only place where most victims end up alive and unscathed once the victims' families pay the ransoms is the Philippines. Not totally sure why. Maybe it's because most of the kidnappers are professional soldiers instead of random gangs?
- robbiep 8y agothe article states the opposite: 9% of those who don't have K&R insurance come to some form of grief vs. 2% of those with K&R insurance (worldwide stats, assumably?)
- chaostheory 8y agoMaybe they also group this together with kidnappings by relatives for a financial scam? That would explain better treatment in the stats. (imo this should also be treated separately, though not sure when we don't have access to the data.) On a related note, kidnappings in the West will also probably skew the data since most of it is done by divorced parents who don't custody. Rape also has a much larger stigma outside of the West. That aspect of the kidnapping may be hidden due to culture. I'm also very unfamiliar with kidnappings in India and the surrounding regions. I just know that the Philippines is special place when it comes to kidnapping; victims were rarely harmed in any way as long as the ransom demands were met - after negotiation of course. The exception happens when terrorists in the southern most region are the kidnappers.
- himom 8y agoWay back, I had an 18yo Colombian gf whom I considered visiting under the assumption of buying reasonably-priced, short-term K&R insurance. At the time, Colombia was the top kidnapping spot, more-so than anywhere in the Middle East or Africa, because the FARC was funding their operations through drugs and ransoms. Even though she lived in the safest and most protected area, there was the risk of problems in transit in Bogota or Medellín, or merely visiting anyone or traveling inland or at night. I strongly considered it given how hot she was then, but then I met someone else whom I had more in common with and no language barrier. Long-distance physical relationships might just be an oxymoron. ;]
- rdl 8y agoSeems like it would have been way cheaper to just buy her a plane ticket to the US.
- billpg 8y agoOne thing I don't quite get... Say I've kidnapped someone and the ransom has been paid. I could release the hostage but then there would be someone with knowledge of my operation out there walking about. If I killed the hostage instead, I'll have eliminated that risk and I can keep the ransom. It's not like anyone is going to sue me for not keeping my side of the contract. Maybe I'm going to get a reputation for killing hostages and people stop paying ransoms, but then I'll just throw away that identity and give myself a new name. Any game-theorists wish to comment?
- verytrivial 8y agoNot a game theorist, but this is probably the same reason "ransomware" actually does unlock your data if your provide the BTC -- if it didn't, people would not pay. It's market forces at play and is what distinguishes organised criminals from garden variety criminals. (Sorry if that is stated in the article, but there is a pay-wall.)
- MaxBarraclough 8y agoBut that assumes the kidnappers have a long-term game to play, and need to worry about their reputation, no? That will be the case at least some of the time, I suppose. Also, some 'ransomware' never unlocks, even on payment. 'NotPetya' is the famous one, perhaps there are others. A sufficiently spooked victim might behave irrationally and fail to research the ransomware's track record before paying up.
- richjdsmith 8y agoIt's not so much as worrying about their personal (gang, group, person) reputation, but rather the reputation of kidnappers in general. Kidnapping is a business. I would assume people who kidnap others do it more than once. If you want your industry (kidnapping) to continue to exist/be profitable, then would-be-payers must know that they are likely going to get the person(s) back.
- 8y ago
- Dowwie 8y agoWhat factors are considered in the risk models to price ransom insurance?