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More like buying fire insurance for a house as you see an arsonist walking slowly toward it. You know what the expected outcome is going to be and are securing

More like buying fire insurance for a house as you see an arsonist walking slowly toward it. You know what the expected outcome is going to be and are securing an agreement deliberately in bad faith. That's not to say insurance companies are always good faith actors (oftentimes not), but it's a very one-sided information flow.

SkyBelow 6y ago
If there has been a rise in arson cases in my city that finally convinces me to get fire insurance, is that in bad faith? I have a reason to believe my house is now more at risk of burning down, so I'm buying insurance. It seems a much more realistic scenario than the one of having a arsonist slowly approaching a house (and even then, arsonist in general do not burn down most the buildings they approach throughout their lifetime, and even more so when you could individual approaches that result in arson). What about someone who notices that they are getting older and are starting to develop aches and pains and decides to start buying health insurance that they had avoided when they were younger because they seemed to have been made out of rubber back then?
- wastedhours 6y ago
  The fact there's so many ifs and buts shows this can't be a clear line. In the eyes of the law, it's about the intent of the action - which is why the ambiguity at the Terms and Conditions level is probably for the best. Yeah, your first argument makes a lot more sense to normal situations, but mine was aimed at being an analogy to the example at hand from the article.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > What about someone who notices that they are getting older and are starting to develop aches and pains and decides to start buying health insurance that they had avoided when they were younger because they seemed to have been made out of rubber back then? That's exactly the reason the ACA made health insurance mandatory, to avoid that scenario which would require insurance companies to make the policies more expensive in order to compensate for the higher average age and worsening average health of the insured pool, which further incentivizes the avoidance, and so on, until we're right back in the same situation with a high-risk pool and unaffordable premiums. Incidentally, that doesn't mean that avoiding health insurance if you are young and healthy with no dependents is actually a good idea at the outset, since many common health conditions like injuries from car accidents don't particularly discriminate by age.

SkyBelow 6y ago

If there has been a rise in arson cases in my city that finally convinces me to get fire insurance, is that in bad faith? I have a reason to believe my house is now more at risk of burning down, so I'm buying insurance. It seems a much more realistic scenario than the one of having a arsonist slowly approaching a house (and even then, arsonist in general do not burn down most the buildings they approach throughout their lifetime, and even more so when you could individual approaches that result in arson). What about someone who notices that they are getting older and are starting to develop aches and pains and decides to start buying health insurance that they had avoided when they were younger because they seemed to have been made out of rubber back then?

wastedhours 6y ago
The fact there's so many ifs and buts shows this can't be a clear line. In the eyes of the law, it's about the intent of the action - which is why the ambiguity at the Terms and Conditions level is probably for the best. Yeah, your first argument makes a lot more sense to normal situations, but mine was aimed at being an analogy to the example at hand from the article.
webmaven 6y ago
> What about someone who notices that they are getting older and are starting to develop aches and pains and decides to start buying health insurance that they had avoided when they were younger because they seemed to have been made out of rubber back then? That's exactly the reason the ACA made health insurance mandatory, to avoid that scenario which would require insurance companies to make the policies more expensive in order to compensate for the higher average age and worsening average health of the insured pool, which further incentivizes the avoidance, and so on, until we're right back in the same situation with a high-risk pool and unaffordable premiums. Incidentally, that doesn't mean that avoiding health insurance if you are young and healthy with no dependents is actually a good idea at the outset, since many common health conditions like injuries from car accidents don't particularly discriminate by age.