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> This is how insurance is supposed to work. It should reflect your actual risk levels. Of course not. This is how perverse insurance works. Proper insurance s
by ekianjo 3y ago
> This is how insurance is supposed to work. It should reflect your actual risk levels.
Of course not. This is how perverse insurance works. Proper insurance systems work by pooling risks into large groups so that the few who are unlucky to have problems at a given point in time are covered.
The whole custom risk factor at the individual level is pure exploitation and a travesty of what insurance systems used to stand for.
- _heimdall 3y agoI'm not sure that I follow. Whats wrong with insurance companies factoring in DNA markers to put people at risk of cancer or heart attack in a higher risk pool? That's not a custom risk factor at the individual level. Its just using data they believe indicates risk to decide what larger pool the person gets put into.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoYou don’t even need DNA data do to that, just use race statistics to increase or decrease your premium! Or do you think that would be illegal?
- concordDance 3y agoCompanies use many forms of data to change premiums, many you don't have much control over (e.g. what area of the country you live in). Why is that wrong?
- polygamous_bat 3y agoBecause you can possibly change your address but not your race?
- concordDance 3y agoYou can change it in theory but if that's where your family, job, kids school, etc are? Then realistically you don't have a choice.
- jjgreen 3y agoCombine that with race extracted from x-rays and AI ... https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/study-finds-artificial-intelligence-can-determine-race-medical-images https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/study-finds-a...
- _heimdall 3y agoI don't know insurance law well enough to say if that's legally discrimination. Now if you're asking me personally, I dislike the insurance industry in general. Insurance shouldn't be required, legally or otherwise. At that point insurance companies can use whatever data they want to price policies, as long as the terms are clear customers would actually have a choice whether they want insurance or not.
- dorfsmay 3y agoSo car insurances shouldn't account for past driving experience? Are you talking private insurance or socialised risk mitigation? The goal of private companies is to make profits. There is space and use cases for both models. Of course large private companies put efforts into making people believe that's not the case.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago> So car insurances shouldn't account for past driving experience? Do you understand why discriminating job applicants based on race/sex is illegal but not based on GPA? One is something you were born with. Another is something that you did.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoAll the evidence I have seen points to “what you were born with”, including the parent(s), family, neighborhood, etc to be very heavily correlated with GPA.
- genewitch 3y agoRight, but for some reason it lets claim the moral high-ground. Right now individual taxes account for more revenue than all companies combined, perhaps barring payroll taxes. Socialize medicine, please. A million dollars for a cancer treatment is insanity, when nearly 50% of the US population will get cancer at some point in their lives.
- dorfsmay 3y agoShould we private insurance on "something you're born with" based risks?
- lacrimacida 3y agoDon’t compare car insurance with health insurance. Past driving incidents are perfectly okay to take into consideration for car insurance, some people need incentives to drive safely. But genetics is nothing people can change, it’s fixed.
- lostlogin 3y ago> Of course not. This is how perverse insurance works. Proper insurance systems work by pooling risks into large groups so that the few who are unlucky to have problems at a given point in time are covered. Have you just described socialised healthcare?
- piperswe 3y agoSocialized healthcare is insurance, so I guess?
- ekianjo 3y ago> Have you just described socialised healthcare? No just regular insurance before insurance companies figured out they could make more profits by making individual customization, which should be completely forbidden by regulations in the first place.