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Criticism Of Insurance
By: Joseph Kenny
Insurance policies work by taking premiums from customers in exchange for baring
the risk of certain costly events occurring. For example, if there is one fire
in your town each month, everyone could just sit tight and hope their house
doesn’t burn down next, or everyone could pitch in and pay an insurance premium
each month and this is then used to rebuild the house that burns down. Very
simply this is how insurance works. It is a method of spreading a risk over a
far wider area, so that it will not be as devastating as if it was concentrated
solely on the person who experiences the loss.
Exclusion Clauses
There are a few problems with this however and they attract much criticism. One
criticism is that by taking on the risk for people, insurance makes people take
greater risks than they otherwise would. For example, if you know your home
contents are insured against burglary, then you may not be as careful about
locking the doors and windows every time you leave the house. Or if your bike is
insured, you may not bother to lock it as much as if it wasn’t insured. In the
insurance industry, this problem is known as the moral hazard.
Insurance companies protect themselves against this by inserting exclusion
clauses into their contracts, which remove their obligation to pay out if the
insured performs or fails to perform certain stated actions. They might for
instance require that you fit smoke detectors, or use good locks on your doors,
or other things that will reduce the risk of the insured against event
occurring.
Too Complex
There are also certain risks that you are not allowed to insure against in most
countries. This is first of all because it would be too difficult for the
insurance companies to quantify, but mostly it’s because they are risks that
governments want the person at risk to bare himself or herself. They generally
apply to multinational companies.
There is also the criticism that insurance policies are far too complex for the
vast majority of consumers to understand. It is simply unreasonable to expect
the customer to understand lengthy documents that have been drafted by not one,
but usually teams of specialised lawyers. This can lead to consumers being
misled or buying insurance policies on unfavourable terms. To get around this,
most countries regulate the content of insurance contracts to ensure that they
remain fair to consumers.
There is also the option of using the services of an insurance broker to shop
the market for you.
About the Author:
Joseph Kenny is the webmaster of the insurance site http://www.insure121.com/
where you will find information, news and links to the leading providers of home
insurance in the UK.
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