Comment by hallway_monitor
21 hours ago
It does seem like it's time to stop letting this "industry" profit off the misfortune of its customers. Making all of these a public service instead of private industry makes sense at this point.
21 hours ago
It does seem like it's time to stop letting this "industry" profit off the misfortune of its customers. Making all of these a public service instead of private industry makes sense at this point.
The profit margins on insurance are usually pretty slim. Insurance companies are generally not well differentiated from one another, so they have few avenues to compete other than on price. A state-run insurance plan also has to operate at a profit/surplus or else it will have to be subsidized by the taxpayers. The effect is the same either way.
Slim from a percentage of total premiums but substantial when looking at the absolute dollar amount of profits. It's all relative to the size of the pie.
The absolute value is only meaningful when compared to the amount of capital invested.
Its also only meaningful when measured over a long period which takes good years and bad years into account.
1 reply →
Ironically they don't profit off the misfortunate customers. Those ones typically get back more than their premiums.
They profit off the fortunate customers, those who have no need to claim from insurance.
Even that depends on the length of their coverage and the claims the customers are able to make.