Bitcoin is the free market alternative to banks and government money. How can we do a free market alternative to insurance companies?

Insurance is the natural enemy of public harms like the junk food industry. It could even proactively protect our personal safety and health.

The problem is, just like banks, current insurance companies are behemoths that are entwined in the system and lobby the government to stifle competition and innovation.

We need free market insurance that is independent of government institutions, just like Bitcoin.

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Good question. May need a way to decentralize it so it doesn't lead to another behemoth.

One aspect of the current health insurance state is that it is expected to be more than insurance against risk of accident and disease--people largely expect it to cover routine and preventative care as well.

It is possible that in a true free market health insurance companies will provide these to the extent that such care reduces the downstream risk of preventable disease. Likewise, they may incentivize healthier lifestyle choices through reduced premiums/expanded coverage.

Nonetheless, the actual mechanics of market forces and competition resulting in a broad spectrum of insurance choices/costs is so distorted by government legislation and regulation that we get a completely ill-fitting market that few people are happy with.

That's a very good point. Maybe some people would pay a little extra for a health and safety service package that covers all your needs, not just the unusual events.

Current insurance companies not incentivizing and helping their customers achieve a healthier and safer lifestyle is absolutely an indication of how far the system is from a free market and how much we need something better.

For example, in Finland we have a public health system funded by the taxpayer, which effectively subsidizes junk food, tobacco and other harmful products that would be less popular if you had to pay higher premiums.

Safety providers would make you wear a bitcoin cap β€” not as an invitation to robbers, but the opposite: "do not mess with one of us" πŸ˜„

I see that you left off Kossu from your list of harmful products πŸ˜†

A huge issue here is risk is not uniform, nor is it fungible. The particularly broken forms of insurance are also the most fraudulent - the ones where risks are uniform across the risk pool like guaranteed insurance.

Real insurance for risk requires underwriting like a loan and a rating scheme. If anything this would be a protocol or company built on Bitcoin (layer 3).

The insurance markets (ex health insurance) work quite well, especially in a mutual scheme where profits are returned to policy holders.

In my opinion an ideal solution would be similar to a product offered by a mutual carrier minus the doxxing of info. Perhaps this could be done by creating a firewall between underwriter and carrier where the underwriter knows the info, attests to it, the carrier takes the risk without knowing all the details. Such a system would provide a significant privacy improvement.

nostr:npub1q7xqc79rteknhs5s4rsqju2yu8tuguvptu373napkzptsz65yn2qz590jl has an interesting approach. If I got it right they pool people to similar risk categories and then you kinda insure each other.

Lot of discussion on it in 196:th Bitcoin Standard podcast.

The model is not exactly clear though. Hard to understand from European perspective.

Free market perspective prediction markets/gambling might be the way to go?

Member crowdfunding of costs is an interesting approach. The system is not subject to insurance regulation even if it's a company.

Instead of claims being binarily rejected or accepted, everyone gets to vote with their wallet. There's less friction when everyone gets to go by their own decision. Also there's no treasury that can be lost or stolen.

In a bitcoin system, the crowdfunding could be done somewhat anonymously using coinjoins or lightning.

I guess there's tradeoffs as well. More participation is required of members. Getting reimbursed might be less certain, or maybe participants would feel less cohesion when there's no common treasury at stake.

Prediction markets are very interesting for some purposes, but you might not want to reveal your personal insurance claim to the public, or to a random selection of judges like the protocols usually require. Also it may prove challenging to get Nostr folks onto Ethereum smart contracts πŸ˜„

Leaving the pool is easier when you don't have money stuck in the treasury, which may have its pros and cons.

You dont need eth for prediction markets, could be done on DLCs.

Insurance companies essentially are prediction markets by itself, the problem is that the data is mostly private so the bootstrapping of actuary data would be problematic for very informed prediction markets.

There is a very interesting hiding in here how to construct public p2p prediction market/pool that achieves roughly similar behaviour to insurance company

Interesting. I always viewed insurance as a company playing the probability function of a given event, and then they set a price x to ensure that probability does not happen to you or they payout y dollars. But they know F(x)>=y all the time, so in the end. The insurance company always wins. That’s why I do not buy extra insurance unless it’s illegal not to do so.