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Micromort

en.wikipedia.org

101–102 of 102 posts

Re: Micromort

#101
post #97
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Your strongest point is competition, but competition only works fully for economically rational agents, which we are not. Regulations are making my point stronger: they exist because without them the clients would be defenseless. Sorry to be short, I'm on a phone.

Like any other product you buy, there is a reasonably transparent and competitive market for personal insurance. Unlike any other product you buy, the price of insurance may not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory. This is the law. Unlike any other product you buy, personal insurance prices must be filed with regulators who have the power to block the sale of any insurance product that does harm to t…

Well I certainly have no special authority in the matter, but maybe Kahnemann has? He got a Nobel after all. To be true he didn't say insurance was a scam, he equated it to lottery in the fact that it plays on the difficulty to evaluate rare events probability, and also the psychological reward in buying a lottery ticket (temporary dreams of massive wealth, e.g. how many Ferrari will I buy...) or insurance (peace of mind).

I have friends in the insurance business and I think it is a very honorable profession in most of the cases but you can't wipe out 1) the door to door insurance salesman scamming fragile old people, 2) the possibility that, much like finance, the whole insurance profession is based on wrong equations that makes it apparently robust but inherently fragile (in the sense of Nassim Taleb).

Re: Micromort

#102
post #63

The Micromort concept is explored thoroughly and very enjoyable in the book 'The Normal Chronicles' by David Blastland and Michael Spiegelhalter. It's well worth checking out. Blastland was one of the creators of the excellent 'More or Less' on the BBC that looks at how numbers are used and mostly abused by the media, politicians and everyone else. Spiegelhalter is a prof of stats. The book addresses a number of the…

+1 for 'More or Less'. I am a regular listener. As for the book, I believe the correct title is "The Norm Chronicles".

Did you hear the More or Less on juggling? That was me.
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