[JumpCrisscross]

> no inherent reason it must be a profit-making business

Insurance is an extremely demanding business. This isn’t something you can throw commodity drones at. If you’re willing to create a coöperative job that pays millions to its actuaries and risk managers, fine. Most don’t. Hence why a profit-based model works: it can incentivise the people that are needed for it to work in the long run to do the job. (In the short run, anyone can run a sloppy insurance operation.)

[bonestamp2]

One interesting experiment in this area is the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan, where the government has run a break even auto and property insurance organization since 1945. It does not receive money from the tax payers and is completely self sustaining:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan_Government_Insura...

[bonestamp2]

Aside from being non-profit, an additional benefit that makes this model more cost effective is that you don't have insurance companies suing each other because everyone has the same insurance company.