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Best Thing I Read Today
June 24, 2008 Competition

In the aftermath of a natural disaster the dollar amount of the damages can be staggering. One would think that insurance companies would run and hide. Instead they bend-over-backwards to try and be as visible as possible. Jerry-rigged banners pop up on every corner: “Call Blah-Insurance for your claims” followed by 1-800 numbers. Some even set up temporary stands, offices on the fly, etc…Free competition makes them act this way and it’s amazing to see.

 From Imaginary Politics.

"3" Comments
  1. Great observation. I’ve noticed that myself.

  2. Reality check:

    “Before the 1994 Northridge earthquake, more than a third of California homeowners had quake insurance; right after, the insurers fled the market, so that fewer than 15 percent of California homeowners have earthquakes in their policies today.”

    New York Times, August 26, 2007

  3. Oh, and the same article (that I cited above) explains that, until Katrina, most insurance companies were unprepared for the losses that they would suffer from a serious catastrophe, and thus their “coverage” was completely bogus. In the event of a serious catastrophe, they would go bankrupt, and those who were “insured” would have to hope that the government would bail them out. Fortunately, that seems to have changed, due to the work of a few people, but the insurance industry as a whole gets no credit for it.

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