Mercury Spill • Hacker News Board

Re: Mercury Spill

#261

Post by hvidgaard » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:22 AM UTC

mbroshi wrote: post #57

existencebox wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw my hat in the ring. Recently had a car totaled when getting it shipped cross country. Apparently because it was an "Act of god" (a hailstorm, with what looks like fist-sized-rock-hail in that every piece of glass and most trim on the car had holes in it, although I'd argue the insurance was for the idiot driver who didn't pull over or cover his load.) the insurance company refused to do squat. The car was…

Insurance companies cannot credibly cover acts of god, aka correlated risks, because they happen to too many people all at once. It's not a simple matter of "fixing" insurance for those matters. NPR's Planet Money had a good discussion: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/03/353030214/bedbu...

The entire reason we buy insurance is to cover events like that, that one would be unable to cover personally.

Of course they can cover. It's a matter of how much you pay for your insurance, and to a large degree how much they company saves up. In the case of a hailstorm it's not because they cannot pay, it's because they don't have proper savings to cover it. A hailstorm with fist size hails is not going to cover the entirety of California, so it's very manageable.

An example, when a fireworks factory in Denmark exploded the total claim of material damage was 750 million DKK (113 million USD). The vast majority was covered by insurance companies, even though that would fall under correlated risks. One of the way insurance companies handle this is to have a joint fund with other insurance companies (I think this is government mandated), where they can withdraw in cases like this.

Re: Mercury Spill

#262

Post by suls » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:36 AM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #52

nostromo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is such a scam. A friend of mine made two claims within about five years: once for water damage and once for a burglary. The insurance company agreed that she was covered. So they paid her and then dropped her. No big deal, right? Wrong. Once you've made a claim or two against your insurance, it can be very hard to get any new insurance company to cover you. She finally did find a new insurer, but the price…

> She finally did find a new insurer, but the price has gone way up -- negating her original claims. This isn't a scam at all. That's exactly what you'd expect from insurance. Insurance isn't there to save you money. In fact, the expected value of an insurance plan is always going to be negative on an infinite time horizon[0]. The whole point of an insurance plan is to smooth risk : instead of the small possibility o…

Re [1]: From a probability perspective, wouldn't it be better for the insurer to get a new customer right after an event? P(cat|cat) must be much smaller than P(cat)?

Re: Mercury Spill

#263

Post by harshreality » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:38 AM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #45

ccvannorman wrote: post #14

It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-] In all seriousness, cool story, glad you're okay, and this makes me think "insurance" as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.

I'll throw my hat in the ring. Recently had a car totaled when getting it shipped cross country. Apparently because it was an "Act of god" (a hailstorm, with what looks like fist-sized-rock-hail in that every piece of glass and most trim on the car had holes in it, although I'd argue the insurance was for the idiot driver who didn't pull over or cover his load.) the insurance company refused to do squat. The car was…

> The car was only blue booked at 5k at the time, but we had to replace it with a 25k car, so I count that as a decent amount of loss.

That's twisted logic. There was a loss of perhaps somewhat more than $5k all things considered, but you didn't have to replace a $5k blue-book-value car with a $25k car. That $25k may have been a big outlay if you paid cash, but it's not a loss for that amount. So far, you've only lost $25k-(current bluebook value), which is much less than $25k (as long as the car hasn't been damaged) even if the car was new and dropped a thousand or two the moment you bought it.

Re: Mercury Spill

#264

Post by barking » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:39 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #41

ccvannorman wrote: post #14

It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-] In all seriousness, cool story, glad you're okay, and this makes me think "insurance" as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.

Insurance is such a scam. A friend of mine made two claims within about five years: once for water damage and once for a burglary. The insurance company agreed that she was covered. So they paid her and then dropped her. No big deal, right? Wrong. Once you've made a claim or two against your insurance, it can be very hard to get any new insurance company to cover you. She finally did find a new insurer, but the price…

You don't need insurance or a burglary, you need insurance for a disaster that is unlikely to ever happen such as the building burning down. And having a mindset like this means you can get insurance cheaper by having exclusions and a high excess.

Re: Mercury Spill

#265

Post by danieltillett » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:42 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #203

danieltillett wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think so too, but I would not be surprised if there is some sort of industry wide collusion to not try and change the situation. The key is separating out the risks that are truly higher from those that are not. If they are applying this as a blanket policy on all claimants it suggests that collusion is the culprit.

Properly rating a potential customer seems to me like the key metric for these companies and if I can find a way to better qualify risk and therefore offer lower prices to truly less risky customers that equals profit. So I'm pretty sure there is very strong competition in this area and insurance companies will do absolutely everything they can to ascertain the risk of each individual customer and price a policy acco…

You would think so, but if it is being done on a blanket basis then it would suggest that not too much looking into the individual situation is being done.

Competition only works if at least one of the parties involved is trying to compete. If all the insurance companies are happy to slap on a blanket risk premium then there is no competition. This is great if you want to disrupt the status quo.

Re: Mercury Spill

#266

Post by petercooper » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:49 AM UTC

jvdh wrote: post #240

vixen99 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impact unknown! Meanwhile many American dentists install mercury amalgam (about 50% Hg) in tooth cavities inches from the brain where it will sit for years on end. How can anyone support this with a straight face. The response is something like 'yes,we know mercury is a devastating neurotoxin but it's tightly bound in the amalgam and there is no proven statistical relationship to say it's dangerous'.

Haven't amalgam fillings been phased out yet? At least in the Netherlands most dentists now use composites to fill cavities. Wikipedia seems to suggest that the performance of those is comparable to amalgam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_composite Cost also seems to be comparable, where composites may even be cheaper than amalgam, because of all the environmental issues surrounding the amalgam material.

I pay for private treatment in the UK and recently had a new amalgam in a non-viewable area because I was told it was far better for the situation and would last longer. Otherwise I always have composites.

When I was a teenager, I accidentally swallowed a damaged mercury filling. Luckily I still seem to be alright :-)

Re: Mercury Spill

#267

Post by liotier » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:50 AM UTC

mkjones wrote: post #191

nrjames wrote: post #49

This sounds so familiar... Here's a story about my 1961 house that is built on concrete slabs. About 18 months ago, we noticed a bit of the hardwood floor was bubbling up. We ignored it. About 6 months ago, our water pressure started to drop and then disappeared altogether. The plumber came and told us that our well pump (which was relatively new) wasn't working. They pulled the pump and the PVC bushing around it was…

I had a similar but less-awful experience (fortunately as a renter rather than owner). Living in a similar slab house, I was surprised when my shower became slow to drain and draino had no effect. I called the plumber, he came by, and eventually told me he'd fixed the problems. Two days later, the drain backs up again. Second plumber comes and is somewhat perplexed - he pulls up roots and suspects they've grown into…

> they ran a new sewer pipe out to the municipal line as well. This part was pretty cool. Rather than digging up the whole yard, they just ran a 1/2" steel cable through the old masonry pipe, hooked it to a solid steel cone, and pulled the cone through with a hydraulic winch, trailing some pvc behind it. As it went, it busted apart the old pipe and put a new one its place.

A month ago near Paris I have seen that method used to replace water mains along a whole street - very impressive !

Re: Mercury Spill

#268

Post by rbobby » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:56 AM UTC

vermontdevil wrote: post #56

nostromo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is such a scam. A friend of mine made two claims within about five years: once for water damage and once for a burglary. The insurance company agreed that she was covered. So they paid her and then dropped her. No big deal, right? Wrong. Once you've made a claim or two against your insurance, it can be very hard to get any new insurance company to cover you. She finally did find a new insurer, but the price…

No shit. What's the point of buying insurance then? I had septic tank back flow into my basement due to a design defect that was put in PRIOR to my purchase of the house. Insurance paid up then dropped me. Second insurance doubled the premium stating I'm a high risk. I was like WTF? This was a design defect that has been fixed. It's not like I'm a slob and let the house fall apart. It's a relatively new house. What's…

The underlying problem is that insurance companies are allowed to segment their customer base by risk. For low risk customers this is great because they get a cheap rate. For the companies it's great because they get to advertise a cheap rate and attract customers (and run really lean administratively... don't need a lot of claims handlers etc).

Things go off the rails though for customers perceived as high risk. Grouping all these folks together means a higher rate, possibly quite a bit higher.

The use of prior claim history as a risk measurement seems like a very cheap way to do underwriting. This feeds into being able to offer the cheapest offering... no need for experienced and qualified underwriters... which means a cheaper product.

The original goal of insurance, shared risked, has been somewhat eroded by this.

Re: Mercury Spill

#269

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #175

newjersey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, someone (not saying I) may or may not have played with mercury from a broken thermometer as a child. Is that person (not necessarily I) a walking health hazard? How does this work?

Short term exposure isn't much of an issue, unless you inhale or ingest it. (Simply playing with it isn't going to send out massive amounts of vapor; it's not super volatile.) The real fear is that it seeps into a hard to clean place and provides a steady stream of vapor over a long time.... basically what the OP illustrated about his house. Previous generations had no qualms playing with it or lighting it on fire in…

[deleted]

Re: Mercury Spill

#270

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

pdabbadabba wrote: post #107

Spooky23 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger scam is that getting the insurance claim denied will probably still either raise his rates or drop him altogether. This is a pretty extreme case of a household hazmat issue. 99/100 times, the pragmatic answer is to maintain deniability, make it as safe as possible and get out if necessary.

> ...the pragmatic answer is to maintain deniability, make it as safe as possible and get out if necessary. Seriously? Pragmatic, yes. But am I reading you correctly? It sounds like your suggestion is to simply sell the house to someone without telling them about the mercury, exposing them to danger, and then prepare to lie about knowing it was there if they do discover it (hopefully not the hard way) and come after…

I didn't say that.

This is one of the cases where you're screwed and need to remediate. Typical household hazmat issues are stuff like lead paint, asbestos, etc. All of which can be stabilized (for example, you can encapsulate lead paint and personally dispose of asbestos in municipal trash) without shelling out money you don't have on remediation services that are often ineffective, and also make it clear that you were aware of the issue.

In this case for example, every neighbor saw the clean harbors guys in spacesuits at his house. When he sells the house a decade from now and the new owner finding more Mercury somewhere, the old lady across the street will tell the new owners, and this person may be sued, even though he nearly bankrupted himself on cleanup. So whenever you can maintain ignorance, you should.