What does insurance mean again?

Question

Seems more like legal racketeering to me. We pay a price to be insured, then they charge us more when we claim on it to make up for the money owed to us? Tell me what you think of this huge and rich industry that they still call insurance!

Answer 1

www.dictionary.com

And look up the definition of racketeering while you're at it.

Depending on the line of coverage, insurance companies generally pay out in claim, close to what they take in, in premium.

Assuming you're talking about car insurance, well, the reason you pay more, is once you've had a claim, you're MUCH more likely to have another one, than someone who hasn't had one.  It's all about the "law of large numbers".    Predicting future losses based on past experience, age, credit score, and location.   And insurance companies do it pretty well most of the time.

Answer 2

Insurance is simply a means of spreading risk.  There is some risk that your house will burn down; if you can write a check for the repairs, you don't need insurance.  But if you have a mortgage on the place, the lender will presume that you CAN'T write such a check, and will require that you have insurance.  Similarly for life insurance: you can insure against the possibility that you will die too soon, or outlive your assets.  If there is enough money in your pocket to not have to worry about either of these eventualities, you don't need insurance.  But most of us do.

You pay a premium in advance for insurance, and the money goes into a pot to pay claims.  Until the money goes out to a claim, it is invested, and the returns from investment help reduce the premiums.  Some life insurance is "cash value", such that you can borrow from the pot; the insurance company needs to collect interest in this investment just as with any other -- the difference being that if you die while the loan is in place, the insurance company simply reduces the benefit amount by the amount of the loan, so it is paid off.

The following is useful for dealing with finance and insurance issues:

Answer 3

Insurance is simply "the transfer of a risk".

There are big concerns about the industry that have been going on for some years.  Insurance companies in general have become multimillionaire companies by doing all that they do.  Not all insurance companies do the right thing.  As a matter of fact, most insurance companies are about selling you the product that brings in more money for them  

I believe they should be based on providing the best product coverage that is best for the individual family instead of a broad coverage type that results in so many people in the wrong type of insurance and paying too much for that insurance, especially life insurance.  The industry have people believing they cannot afford to have life insurance.

The fact is that people have not been properly educated about financial planning for themselves/families.

People deserve to receive good honest service and the proper product for them and their money.

Let me add that this strategy applies to all areas that involve providing consumers with products!