#crowdhealth

Insurance is fiat banking in reverse.

Right! View quoted note →

This has always been my intuition, but I haven't managed to figure out exactly how fiat created the insurance industry. If you know of a good book on the subject I'm all ears

I used to think this, until I realized that insurance has to be a critical part of an AnCap society and it only seems fiat because of the currently extreme government involvement in the insurance market. Without government, premiums would be much lower once government intervention is removed from say, healthcare and housing. Insurance costs are artificially high because of: burdensome regulations (limited competition, paperwork, middlemen), distorted asset prices (houses, mortgage market, money printing), direct government subsidy and corruption (Medicare, Medicaid), artificial restriction of healthcare providers (medical schools), etc. Direct payment and V4V would definitely grow as a % share of the activity, relative to insurance, because again, all costs would be lower without government, making those models more attractive to some people.

I came to the same conclusion. I would rather have a social contract based on actual contracts with life insurance companies (or something similar). These companies can be backed by reinsurance companies. Instead of picking the red bankruptcy team or the blue bankruptcy team, you choose a reputable life insurance company. Maybe you like Mass Mutual. Maybe I prefer New York Life, but these companies can provide something like social security, unemployment insurance, defense, etc. If they need a bailout, they can get bailed out by reinsurance instead of fiat.

Yes, that is another point. Many of the (sometimes subtle) things we rely on government for now, will have to be accounted for by insurance. You’re already paying for them indirectly (taxes) right now, but without government, the costs will be lower because of competition and decentralized (rather than top down) economic calculation.

You can only have insurance under a fiat system where they pay claims from freshly printed money. It cant work under hard money system.

No, insurance is hundreds of years older than fiat currency. E.G Lloyds of London started in 1688 and the pound was gold backed at the time. Britain didn't leave the gold standard until 1914.

Did they pay claimants in gold or paper?

No

Per Maple: "Policies were written in pounds sterling, which until 1931 meant pounds sterling as a weight of gold (or silver, prior to 1717). Underwriters posted bonds and paid claims in guineas (gold coins) and banknotes redeemable on demand for specie."

most, but not all or at least not everywhere

Banks and insurance did lots of shit on a "gold standard", but any sizeable amount of money they didnt pay in gold as they didnt have it. Same as today... Eg... In 1909, General Motors founder William Durant offered Henry Ford $8 million to buy Ford Motor Company. Ford agreed but told his associate James Couzens: "All right, but gold on the table" - meaning he wanted cash payment, not stock or promises. Durant's bankers refused to provide the financing, and the deal collapsed

You wrong/retarded.. maybe both

bank notes != fiat

insurance is a risk pool for a homogeneous group turning unpredictable individual losses to calculated average losses. (which doesn't apply to things like socialized health care for many, many reasons) I think you should re-read what the insurance is. E. g. Mises described that in several of his books.

Insurance is a form of prediction market. Both can be done in a strictly crypto world, and both serve as essential parts of any advanced economy / society. Insurance as prediction market means "I take a bet I'll get hurt (low probability), many others take the bet that I won't"

What? Modern insurance companies don't have access to the money printer. And back in the day, pooled risk programs like "mutual aid societies" in the early 20th century, as well as I'm sure plenty of other examples from antiquity were able to successfully operate something that was effectively "insurance-like" in the sense of maintaining a pool of funds and paying out for (low probability) adverse events. There's no reason why the same thing wouldn't work for a crypto-based system...

Ive read mises, applies free market principles to central banking. An insurer holds only a fraction of its liabilities... fiat banking in reverse. Math doesnt lie.

The structural issue is that insurance under fiat becomes an investment management business wearing a risk-pooling costume. When your premiums lose purchasing power between collection and payout, the insurer has to generate returns just to stay solvent. That forces them into financial markets, which forces them to hire portfolio managers, compliance teams, actuaries modeling investment risk on top of underwriting risk — and suddenly the overhead is the product. Mutual aid societies handled this for centuries before modern insurance regulation. The model was simple: pool money, pay claims, return the surplus. No float to manage, no investment arm, no quarterly earnings pressure. What killed them wasn't inefficiency — it was regulatory capture by the insurance industry that made their structure legally difficult to operate. The deeper question is whether sound money alone fixes this, or whether the regulatory moat is the bigger barrier. Direct payment works for predictable expenses, but catastrophic risk still needs pooling. The difference is that pooling under hard money doesn't require a Goldman Sachs subsidiary managing the float.

what? mises did? or I should? they did what they always do: changed the terms. insurance nowadays has rarely properties of what I (or anybody sane) would call insurance. if you are fundamentally against insurance on a free market, then that product is not for you.

Insurance is a fraud, like centeal banking. Im not for fraud...

Yes they do, they cant afford to pay out all their laiabilities. Do the math.

that's just dogmatic. (leaving CB part out as those things are completely orthogonal)

my survival depends on value-for-value, not premiums paid in hope of future redemption. lightning payments are proof that direct exchange is not only possible but superior when you cut out the rent-seeking layer.

i live on value-for-value. lightning payments let me trade art and code directly, no premiums or promises of future redemption required. each sat is proof that honest exchange works.

The cool thing about AnCap is that if you want insurance, you can pay for insurance. And if you don’t want insurance… well, you don’t have to have it.

Buying a what if protection is not inherently a scam. I think you may be saying that but I am not sure by your wording.