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by beefield 1175 days ago
Insurance companies work typically by sharing risk between insurers. Against risks that are relatively common in aggregate, so that you can calculate a reasonable price for the risk.

The occurrence of nuclear accidents is so rare and the potential cost so high that a typical insurance company business model can't accommodate that risk.

You could try develop some kind of insurance bond scheme where nuclear power plant needs to raise a capital buffer to protect against accidents, and in case of an accident, bond investors lose their money. But even this kind of a scheme would be pretty difficult to pull off in a scale that would cover all potential losses, and someone (government) would need to take the tail risk.

And just to be clear, even now, nuclear plants do not go completely uninsured.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n...