[ekianjo]

> This is how insurance is supposed to work. It should reflect your actual risk levels.

Of course not. This is how perverse insurance works. Proper insurance systems work by pooling risks into large groups so that the few who are unlucky to have problems at a given point in time are covered.

The whole custom risk factor at the individual level is pure exploitation and a travesty of what insurance systems used to stand for.

[lostlogin]

> Of course not. This is how perverse insurance works. Proper insurance systems work by pooling risks into large groups so that the few who are unlucky to have problems at a given point in time are covered.

Have you just described socialised healthcare?

[ekianjo]

> Have you just described socialised healthcare?

No just regular insurance before insurance companies figured out they could make more profits by making individual customization, which should be completely forbidden by regulations in the first place.

[piperswe]

Socialized healthcare is insurance, so I guess?

[_heimdall]

I'm not sure that I follow. Whats wrong with insurance companies factoring in DNA markers to put people at risk of cancer or heart attack in a higher risk pool?

That's not a custom risk factor at the individual level. Its just using data they believe indicates risk to decide what larger pool the person gets put into.

[polygamous_bat]

You don’t even need DNA data do to that, just use race statistics to increase or decrease your premium! Or do you think that would be illegal?

[_heimdall]

I don't know insurance law well enough to say if that's legally discrimination.

Now if you're asking me personally, I dislike the insurance industry in general. Insurance shouldn't be required, legally or otherwise. At that point insurance companies can use whatever data they want to price policies, as long as the terms are clear customers would actually have a choice whether they want insurance or not.

[jjgreen]

Combine that with race extracted from x-rays and AI ... https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/study-finds-a...

[concordDance]

Companies use many forms of data to change premiums, many you don't have much control over (e.g. what area of the country you live in). Why is that wrong?

[polygamous_bat]

Because you can possibly change your address but not your race?

[concordDance]

You can change it in theory but if that's where your family, job, kids school, etc are? Then realistically you don't have a choice.

[dorfsmay]

So car insurances shouldn't account for past driving experience?

Are you talking private insurance or socialised risk mitigation?

The goal of private companies is to make profits. There is space and use cases for both models. Of course large private companies put efforts into making people believe that's not the case.

[lacrimacida]

Don’t compare car insurance with health insurance. Past driving incidents are perfectly okay to take into consideration for car insurance, some people need incentives to drive safely. But genetics is nothing people can change, it’s fixed.

[Chris2048]

This all assumes two perfectly definable categories of characteristic - fixed, unchangeable category, and incentiv-isable behaviour / changable category.

It's not always that clear e.g. genetic disposition to alcoholism is linked to actual alcoholism and related behaviours.

[dorfsmay]

I agree, and that's my point. Should we have private insurances for genetic based risks?

Is there a point of private health insurance?

[bugglebeetle]

No.

[ekianjo]

> So car insurances shouldn't account for past driving experience?

Nope, they should not. That's exactly the kind of things that ends up bringing prices up for everyone in the end.

[polygamous_bat]

> So car insurances shouldn't account for past driving experience?

Do you understand why discriminating job applicants based on race/sex is illegal but not based on GPA?

One is something you were born with. Another is something that you did.

[lotsofpulp]

All the evidence I have seen points to “what you were born with”, including the parent(s), family, neighborhood, etc to be very heavily correlated with GPA.

[genewitch]

Right, but for some reason it lets claim the moral high-ground. Right now individual taxes account for more revenue than all companies combined, perhaps barring payroll taxes.

Socialize medicine, please. A million dollars for a cancer treatment is insanity, when nearly 50% of the US population will get cancer at some point in their lives.

[dorfsmay]

Should we private insurance on "something you're born with" based risks?