5 ms·

Ask HN: What would you buy insurance for but can't?

5 points by max_ 6y ago

pseingatl 6y ago
Crime insurance. International professional liability insurance.
- max_ 6y ago
  Interesting, Cloud you expand more on both?
- giantg2 6y ago
  I'm not sure how you could get international insurance. It sounds insane to be able to even keep track of every country's legal system to provide that coverage. What do you mean by crime insurance? Usually losses from crimes are covered under home, renter, car, or even more specific insurance.
bwb 6y ago
maternity/paternity. Why can't a copy pay a premium on its team, get that bundled into a big pool with other companies, and then be able to pay a % of the salary to give that to their team. Basically taking the place of government since the USA has failed in its role here.
- giantg2 6y ago
  Why would they need that as insurance? Wouldn't it make more sense to put the premiums into funding for temp replacements? I mean, the "risk" should be evenly distributed between companies, and if it's not, it will be reflected in the risk adjusted cost. Insurance is supposed to be for events that are somewhat rare.
  - bwb 6y ago
    Because it is super expensive to manage on your own, the point of insurance is to spread the cost over the society and reducing this type of financial risk to any one company. Basically a private version of what every other country does (we are just stuck in the dark ages). Maternity/Paternity is extremely rare. Coverage is only 6 months out of a person's entire working career (multiple kids is still low).
    - giantg2 6y ago
      Why is it super expensive? How does insurance make it any less so? The insurance companies are there to make money, so it will be more expensive. Especially when you consider that you can use your existing HR department for the same work. Sure, you want to spread it out over the population, but you aren't really going to see many benefits in terms of cost reduction. The scenario that insurance is useful for is low occurrence, high risk situations - like a house burning down.
      - bwb 6y ago
        Super Expensive = Holding all the risk of one time events hurting your financials. Less Expensive = Building that into your monthly cost of doing business and spreading it out over a long period. If you are a small company with young people you will see a cost reduction, if you are a big company with mostly older people you might see a cost increase. But, both companies would lower their financial risk, keep their female employees (stats on how many stay out of workforce post birth is huge - check the google study), and pffer a perk that attracts the young talented workforce they need. Sure insurance is good for high risk situations, but it also perfect for when you need to spread risk over an entire population so that the financial impact of an individual event is lessened on the individual and company involved. Health care is a perfect example, everyone pays in as a member of society, and if you get sick you are covered. Of course this is totally broken in the USA, as here health care is just a discount card. But elsewhere that isn't the case. You spread the risk over the entire population so that if someone gets sick they can just focus on getting better so they can start paying taxes again. Where as in the USA we do our best to destroy their finances, their family, their mental health, and so on. Maternity/Paternity could be run privately in the USA until the government takes it over using the same method. You reduce the impact on individuals and individual companies by spreading the cost over the entire workforce taking part in the pool. Would that reduce the costs for the company? Yes, and maybe more importantly it takes the risk out of the equation and smooths out your risk. For example: If you have a company with 25 people and 2 people are out on paternity/maternity, that is a big financial impact to cover yourself. If instead you have paid into paternity/maternity insurance, that could help you by covering 50% of their salary, or even 200% depending on the plan which allows you to hire consultants over that period to cover their work if need be. Insurance can also be about smoothing out your risk profile and lessening any flook one time financial hits. Maternity/Paternity Insurance can be run as a public collective, especially in something like this where you keep back office efficient (given the low threshold for fraud with how you could legally protect yourself and only deal with companies) and you have a capped profit margin of say 5% on premiums collected each year.
- mbg721 6y ago
  Just a gut guess, but it may be too expensive for the same reasons that health insurance in general is too expensive. Many companies already self-insure and just use the big insurer name to administer the plan and offer the provider network.
  - bwb 6y ago
    Possibly, I looked at doing an insurance product like this and it didn't seem too bad. It is different than health insurance in that there are no hidden costs, just the cost of replacing a salary to the business for a while. For example, the coverage could replace just a certain amount of their salary while the company pays the rest.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    Short term disability plans already cover the employee side. It’s a classic insurance case, as pools don’t have tons of events and the policies pay the excess on the of state family leave plans, PTO, etc. My wife’s employer had short/long term policies that “wrapped” paid family leave up to 14 weeks iirc.
NotAnOtter 6y ago
Floor insurance. Like a subset of house insurance, but specifically for my floors. I am so paranoid that they'll get scratched up and I'll have to redo them
- giantg2 6y ago
  Why not get different floors?
GoldenMonkey 6y ago
Divorce insurance. Because over 50% of marriages end in divorce. And 2 out of 3 divorces are filed by women. And 90% of child support payments and custody favors women. As well as alimony. A windfall for women. Economic hardship for men. Insurance would make this more equitable. Divorce insurance would cover the costly financial, long term costs of divorce.
- sebastien_b 6y ago
  That sounds like it would get expensive, unless you both take the equivalent of a “marriage physical” before tying the knot. Buy then again, as a new industry it would probably bring down the overall divorce rate.

5 points by max_ 6y ago

pseingatl 6y ago

Crime insurance. International professional liability insurance.

max_ 6y ago
Interesting, Cloud you expand more on both?
giantg2 6y ago
I'm not sure how you could get international insurance. It sounds insane to be able to even keep track of every country's legal system to provide that coverage. What do you mean by crime insurance? Usually losses from crimes are covered under home, renter, car, or even more specific insurance.

bwb 6y ago

maternity/paternity. Why can't a copy pay a premium on its team, get that bundled into a big pool with other companies, and then be able to pay a % of the salary to give that to their team. Basically taking the place of government since the USA has failed in its role here.

giantg2 6y ago
Why would they need that as insurance? Wouldn't it make more sense to put the premiums into funding for temp replacements? I mean, the "risk" should be evenly distributed between companies, and if it's not, it will be reflected in the risk adjusted cost. Insurance is supposed to be for events that are somewhat rare.
- bwb 6y ago
  Because it is super expensive to manage on your own, the point of insurance is to spread the cost over the society and reducing this type of financial risk to any one company. Basically a private version of what every other country does (we are just stuck in the dark ages). Maternity/Paternity is extremely rare. Coverage is only 6 months out of a person's entire working career (multiple kids is still low).
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Why is it super expensive? How does insurance make it any less so? The insurance companies are there to make money, so it will be more expensive. Especially when you consider that you can use your existing HR department for the same work. Sure, you want to spread it out over the population, but you aren't really going to see many benefits in terms of cost reduction. The scenario that insurance is useful for is low occurrence, high risk situations - like a house burning down.
    - bwb 6y ago
      Super Expensive = Holding all the risk of one time events hurting your financials. Less Expensive = Building that into your monthly cost of doing business and spreading it out over a long period. If you are a small company with young people you will see a cost reduction, if you are a big company with mostly older people you might see a cost increase. But, both companies would lower their financial risk, keep their female employees (stats on how many stay out of workforce post birth is huge - check the google study), and pffer a perk that attracts the young talented workforce they need. Sure insurance is good for high risk situations, but it also perfect for when you need to spread risk over an entire population so that the financial impact of an individual event is lessened on the individual and company involved. Health care is a perfect example, everyone pays in as a member of society, and if you get sick you are covered. Of course this is totally broken in the USA, as here health care is just a discount card. But elsewhere that isn't the case. You spread the risk over the entire population so that if someone gets sick they can just focus on getting better so they can start paying taxes again. Where as in the USA we do our best to destroy their finances, their family, their mental health, and so on. Maternity/Paternity could be run privately in the USA until the government takes it over using the same method. You reduce the impact on individuals and individual companies by spreading the cost over the entire workforce taking part in the pool. Would that reduce the costs for the company? Yes, and maybe more importantly it takes the risk out of the equation and smooths out your risk. For example: If you have a company with 25 people and 2 people are out on paternity/maternity, that is a big financial impact to cover yourself. If instead you have paid into paternity/maternity insurance, that could help you by covering 50% of their salary, or even 200% depending on the plan which allows you to hire consultants over that period to cover their work if need be. Insurance can also be about smoothing out your risk profile and lessening any flook one time financial hits. Maternity/Paternity Insurance can be run as a public collective, especially in something like this where you keep back office efficient (given the low threshold for fraud with how you could legally protect yourself and only deal with companies) and you have a capped profit margin of say 5% on premiums collected each year.
mbg721 6y ago
Just a gut guess, but it may be too expensive for the same reasons that health insurance in general is too expensive. Many companies already self-insure and just use the big insurer name to administer the plan and offer the provider network.
- bwb 6y ago
  Possibly, I looked at doing an insurance product like this and it didn't seem too bad. It is different than health insurance in that there are no hidden costs, just the cost of replacing a salary to the business for a while. For example, the coverage could replace just a certain amount of their salary while the company pays the rest.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Short term disability plans already cover the employee side. It’s a classic insurance case, as pools don’t have tons of events and the policies pay the excess on the of state family leave plans, PTO, etc. My wife’s employer had short/long term policies that “wrapped” paid family leave up to 14 weeks iirc.

NotAnOtter 6y ago

Floor insurance. Like a subset of house insurance, but specifically for my floors. I am so paranoid that they'll get scratched up and I'll have to redo them

giantg2 6y ago
Why not get different floors?

GoldenMonkey 6y ago

Divorce insurance. Because over 50% of marriages end in divorce. And 2 out of 3 divorces are filed by women. And 90% of child support payments and custody favors women. As well as alimony. A windfall for women. Economic hardship for men. Insurance would make this more equitable. Divorce insurance would cover the costly financial, long term costs of divorce.

sebastien_b 6y ago
That sounds like it would get expensive, unless you both take the equivalent of a “marriage physical” before tying the knot. Buy then again, as a new industry it would probably bring down the overall divorce rate.