Author Topic: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!  (Read 5365 times)

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Offline cdev

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #25 on: December 19, 2020, 09:28:35 pm »
A coronavirus epidemic was not at all unexpected.

There are two links in the first of the articles I linked earlier.
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Offline Alex EisenhutTopic starter

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #26 on: December 20, 2020, 04:17:31 am »
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Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #27 on: December 20, 2020, 11:39:25 am »

Do not think that I am a communist, but in the USSR, insurance companies were state - owned and budget money was sent to cover losses. That is, the payment was guaranteed by the whole country - there was no gambling. Maybe the market economy is not so good against the background of socialism?  :)


By the way, Russia now has very good conditions for small businesses - you can use a simplified one. The tax system and I use it. This is a payment of 6% of the income (you can 15% of the profit) and no accounting. It is only necessary to send a declaration once a year (the bank does it for me for free), pay tax and social insurance each quarter. Social insurance is deducted from the tax.  :)
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #28 on: December 20, 2020, 05:44:18 pm »
If only there was a way to identify those who break the COVID safety rules (and thereby keep it going), then charge them a lot more for health insurance and/or deprioritize them for care. Problem is, there's no good way to do that. But then I had an idea: what if there were health insurance plans with a much higher deductible for COVID-related hospitalizations than for other health problems, in exchange for lower premiums? (Exception: if COVID was caught going to the hospital to care for some other health problem that cannot be delayed.) Such plans would push people to be more careful about not catching COVID.
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #29 on: December 20, 2020, 06:48:35 pm »

[...] Maybe the market economy is not so good against the background of socialism?  :)  [...]


That is a very old question, of course.  My feeling is that each of the two systems is better at some things than the other.  So I favour a mixed system...   where the state takes care of defense, education, healthcare, pensions (if the private sector is involved, the state should be the customer)...  and leave the private sector to do as much "non critical stuff" as possible.
 

Offline langwadt

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #30 on: December 20, 2020, 07:12:26 pm »

[...] Maybe the market economy is not so good against the background of socialism?  :)  [...]


That is a very old question, of course.  My feeling is that each of the two systems is better at some things than the other.  So I favour a mixed system...   where the state takes care of defense, education, healthcare, pensions (if the private sector is involved, the state should be the customer)...  and leave the private sector to do as much "non critical stuff" as possible.

so what most of the world is doing?
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #31 on: December 20, 2020, 07:15:54 pm »

The % balance is different - e.g. compare USA and China, or even the UK and Denmark?
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #32 on: December 20, 2020, 10:26:16 pm »
If only there was a way to identify those who break the COVID safety rules (and thereby keep it going), then charge them a lot more for health insurance and/or deprioritize them for care. Problem is, there's no good way to do that. But then I had an idea: what if there were health insurance plans with a much higher deductible for COVID-related hospitalizations than for other health problems, in exchange for lower premiums? (Exception: if COVID was caught going to the hospital to care for some other health problem that cannot be delayed.) Such plans would push people to be more careful about not catching COVID.

What about people who are naturally more exposed to COVID risk.  Key workers like supermarket employees, restaurant waiters, parcel delivery drivers,  etc.  Do they get to pay more too?   
There isn't a 'market based solution' to a problem like this. 
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #33 on: December 20, 2020, 11:05:36 pm »
Insurance companies seem to hate small business.
Sure they do. With good reason. Something like 80% of small businesses dont survive for 5 years.
Who would be crazy to play those odds?
Most of these small business owners have a plan like this:
"I like baking cookies, and people like it, so I make a bakery, and people will buy it for like 5 dollars."
"Do you know accounting? HR? Do you know the legal requirements? Have you ever worked overtime on your weekend?"
"No, but I like cookies"
Honestly, Luis is not different. He is constantly ranting about topics, which he has not a single clue how they work. He spent a better half of last year ranting about NY rental market. Until someone explained to him how financing and contracts work. And then he went on a rant: OMG, that's crazy. This is like 95% of his content now. Not worth the time to watch IMHO.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #34 on: December 20, 2020, 11:37:24 pm »
What about people who are naturally more exposed to COVID risk.  Key workers like supermarket employees, restaurant waiters, parcel delivery drivers,  etc.  Do they get to pay more too?   
There isn't a 'market based solution' to a problem like this. 
Workers exposed to greater risk at the workplace with no reasonable way to lower the risk any further than it currently is could get lesser deductible increases.
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Offline langwadt

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #35 on: December 20, 2020, 11:47:35 pm »
Insurance companies seem to hate small business.
Sure they do. With good reason. Something like 80% of small businesses dont survive for 5 years.
Who would be crazy to play those odds?

why would an insurance company care if a small business only survives 5 years?, as long as they
pay while alive

Most of these small business owners have a plan like this:
"I like baking cookies, and people like it, so I make a bakery, and people will buy it for like 5 dollars."
"Do you know accounting? HR? Do you know the legal requirements? Have you ever worked overtime on your weekend?"
"No, but I like cookies"
Honestly, Luis is not different. He is constantly ranting about topics, which he has not a single clue how they work. He spent a better half of last year ranting about NY rental market. Until someone explained to him how financing and contracts work. And then he went on a rant: OMG, that's crazy. This is like 95% of his content now. Not worth the time to watch IMHO.

that there's an explanation why it is crazy doesn't make it any less crazy

 

Offline langwadt

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #36 on: December 20, 2020, 11:49:39 pm »
What about people who are naturally more exposed to COVID risk.  Key workers like supermarket employees, restaurant waiters, parcel delivery drivers,  etc.  Do they get to pay more too?   
There isn't a 'market based solution' to a problem like this. 
Workers exposed to greater risk at the workplace with no reasonable way to lower the risk any further than it currently is could get lesser deductible increases.

excellent way to pointlessly waste a few billions on bureaucracy and get nothing in return
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #37 on: December 21, 2020, 02:29:14 am »
People who have higher risk exposure and the older people always have to pay more. Also, the more wealthy your zip code, the less you likely have to pay because wealthy people are healthier. Right now they use zip codes but they would prefer to use your cell phone location data to price your insurance. Also genetics. thats likely going to come back and be used to price your health insurance. They'll figure in what they know (mostly what you have told them, but in some countries they have generations of data on families and relative health)  Also if you get COVID-19 you'll likely soon have to pay a lot more for the rest of your life, or accept that nothing related to it is covered at all.

What about people who are naturally more exposed to COVID risk.  Key workers like supermarket employees, restaurant waiters, parcel delivery drivers,  etc.  Do they get to pay more too?   
There isn't a 'market based solution' to a problem like this. 
Workers exposed to greater risk at the workplace with no reasonable way to lower the risk any further than it currently is could get lesser deductible increases.

excellent way to pointlessly waste a few billions on bureaucracy and get nothing in return
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #38 on: December 21, 2020, 02:37:20 am »
What about people who are naturally more exposed to COVID risk.  Key workers like supermarket employees, restaurant waiters, parcel delivery drivers,  etc.  Do they get to pay more too?   
There isn't a 'market based solution' to a problem like this.
Yes, they likely soon will, a lot. That's how insurance works. Here in the US we've had a 10 year reprieve likely because of the 2010 financial crisis. But its ending now. In the UK a similar dynamic will likely require the NHS be shrunk a lot. In both countries people who can afford to buy insurance will have to and gradually the thresholds and the penalties for lying to get insurance you're not entitled to will also increase. People who were not entitled to coverage may have their coverage ended and payments made on their behalf retroactively clawed back to the beginning of the policy and will be rebilled at the uninsured rate. Which is often many times higher, especially in California. See a series by Lisa Girion in the LA Times during the mid to late 2000s, for some horrifying stories. Its called "rescission" or "post claim underwriting" - These are people who are dying of terminal illnesses, usually, who they decide to go after.

Of course you will never read anything about that. Its totally twisted how they determine whats done, governments can do a lot less than people think, here in the US we made all sorts of commitments meaning that the WTO is actually who is in charge now.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 02:44:02 am by cdev »
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Offline langwadt

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #39 on: December 21, 2020, 02:42:07 am »
People who have higher risk exposure and the older people always have to pay more. Also, the more wealthy your zip code, the less you likely have to pay because wealthy people are healthier. Right now they use zip codes but they would prefer to use your cell phone location data to price your insurance. Also genetics. thats likely going to come back and be used to price your health insurance. They'll figure in what they know (mostly what you have told them, but in some countries they have generations of data on families and relative health)  Also if you get COVID-19 you'll likely soon have to pay a lot more for the rest of your life, or accept that nothing related to it is covered at all.

around here health insurance is paid via tax so the wealthy actually pays more ...
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #40 on: December 21, 2020, 02:55:53 am »
Yes and as long as you dont change it one bit you'll likely be able to keep it, but change anything (like leaving the EU) or join some new FTA and the likelihood is almost 100% that unless you have totally incorruptible politicians who really know their stuff and CARE, you'll have to conform your system to the rules. Just like with building codes. Change anything and they will make me clean up any and all code violations. In the US those code violations are things like what we call Medicare and Social Security, a public retirement and healthcare system that we inherited from the last century, pre WTO. So its days are numbered. The info is buried in a document in Geneva from 1994, an Annex. Not far from the info as to why the 2008 Global Financial Crisis really occurred. Its really a crazy situation, thats causing a lot of dishonesty in high places.

People who have higher risk exposure and the older people always have to pay more. Also, the more wealthy your zip code, the less you likely have to pay because wealthy people are healthier. Right now they use zip codes but they would prefer to use your cell phone location data to price your insurance. Also genetics. thats likely going to come back and be used to price your health insurance. They'll figure in what they know (mostly what you have told them, but in some countries they have generations of data on families and relative health)  Also if you get COVID-19 you'll likely soon have to pay a lot more for the rest of your life, or accept that nothing related to it is covered at all.

around here health insurance is paid via tax so the wealthy actually pays more ...

Its probably still up to countries how they handle taxation, but what they do with their money is limited more and more, if they have any competition from the commercial sector at all, even if there is only one competitor. Also what is competition? Its anything in a like service which it turns out means anything which can substitute for anything else, so even if you think of healthcare as, well healthcare, its also "like" health insurance. So if you sell insurance, public thing cannot compete with it. But by bit. and soon it can only help those who the market totally fails.

Then the number of rules that apply increases exponentially, zap, and if they are subsidizing or regulating something especially, in our case financial services, it must conform to dozens of rules, including a ceiling established way back in 1998. When they had none of the 2010 relaxations, And if it doesn't its supposed to be eliminated or reduced in scope. Unless what is being done is an "emergency safeguard measure". That seems to be able to last as long as ten years, so 2020...however itsup to their discretion, so we recently had the coronavirus which is arguably a bigger emergency than the 2010 crisis as far as health, but Trump took a different approach and may have used up that emergency completely by picking such a short and abbreviated response just for people who had a contagious disease who were verified and obviously could not work.

So, suppose we revisit the question.. If its "a real emergency", they get to break rules temporarily. How long? I think the honest answer is the least possible time, but for some situations they likely got a lot of leeway because nobody wants this to embarass aybody in the media. 

They aren't about to break their own rules, no matter what. So they need an emergency to break the hard and fast rules. However, there are a bunch of different kinds of laws, and its clear they shouldnt just create emergencies when they want to break these rules, or make one up. But who knows, I wouldn't put that beyond some of them at all.

 Also, generally all new "measures" of every kind imaginable , a very very broad term, must be be "not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service"  What does that mean? It means that it needs to be the very least possible, and that politicians cannot compromise as they used to, it always has to deregulate. And the status quo gets more restrictive, never less. (but they call that deregulation because its the corporations view) That is actually the core principle of US trade policy on services, it seems to me.

The OECD now has a 'STRI" or Services Trade Restrictiveness Index" its actually one of at lest two of these indices that purport to tell countries what they can do to remain compliant. But it does not include health insurance, maybe it doesn't include any insurance. But lots of other kinds of regulation are evaluated for their relative trade restrictiveness.  Anyway, I cant talk about this any more. Insurance is a scam, I totally agree.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 03:41:36 am by cdev »
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Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #41 on: December 21, 2020, 04:43:27 am »
Do not think that I am a communist, but in the USSR, insurance companies were state - owned and budget money was sent to cover losses. That is, the payment was guaranteed by the whole country - there was no gambling. Maybe the market economy is not so good against the background of socialism?  :)
As always, it is a matter of context.

I mean, even the most capitalistic person, if they are sane and happy, will apply socialist rules within their own family.

It is well known that statistically, human behaviour changes drastically depending on the size of the interacting group.  Groups with at most a couple of thousand members will see less crime/offences/destructive behaviour per person than larger groups.  Small groups like families and co-operatives (and some other company forms) can work very, very efficiently using "socialism" internally, but when interacting with clients, competitors, and other companies, "capitalism" seems to work better.

One day, about two decades ago, when I was still running a small IT company as CEO and partial owner, I got called a socialist and a communist, and a filthy capitalist the same day.  (It was because I did not, and still do not believe patents are proper protection for software and other immaterial discoveries; I'd prefer a different form of purchaseable model protection with much shorter timespans.  Not because I think it would be more "moral" or socially proper; because I think the marketplace competition would be better, more effective, bringing overall more stuff to the market, than the current patent system.  I don't think people really know what these terms mean, and how context-dependent they really are.)

Then there is the distinctive matter of public services (or public utilities), that are necessary to maintain the society and/or culture, and en-franchise new members.  Like access to breathable air, energy, clean water, waste handling, and even internet access, today.

When it comes to insurance and banking, there are very good arguments for all different kinds of approaches.  In some ways, fiat currency generated by banks is extremely dangerous (it enables a rent-seeking gambler class with basically zero risk, simply because they own the banks); yet at the same time, putting banks under political control is just as dangerous: politicians tend to seek more and more power for themselves, not less.  Similarly for insurance: there is no guarantee a state-controlled insurance scheme has any better rules than one based on competitive markets; and if those running the state-controlled insurance system have no incentive to not do mistakes and waste money, there really isn't anything other than internal sense of morality for them to do their job properly.

Which comes back to my own argument, once again.  (I apologize for repeating it!  Seriously!)

It is the rules that matter, not who gets to set them.  Exploiters and scam artists only flourish when the rules allow them to.  By accepting scams as a price for doing business, one is the real source of evil, because oneself is at the position to stop it, but chooses not to.  The scammers themselves are just finding their niches in the ecology.  Exploiters rely on their social skills, and as long as social skills are appreciated over the results of their actions, we'll have more and more exploiters around.
 

Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #42 on: December 21, 2020, 06:25:13 am »
It is well known that statistically, human behaviour changes drastically depending on the size of the interacting group.  Groups with at most a couple of thousand members will see less crime/offences/destructive behaviour per person than larger groups.  Small groups like families and co-operatives (and some other company forms) can work very, very efficiently using "socialism" internally, but when interacting with clients, competitors, and other companies, "capitalism" seems to work better.

Many metrics scale as the 4/3 power of city size, or organization (or indeed, organism, in terms of metabolism and so on).  Economic productivity scales up, but so does crime rate, etc.  Make of that what you will.

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Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #43 on: December 21, 2020, 07:25:43 am »
It is well known that statistically, human behaviour changes drastically depending on the size of the interacting group.  Groups with at most a couple of thousand members will see less crime/offences/destructive behaviour per person than larger groups.  Small groups like families and co-operatives (and some other company forms) can work very, very efficiently using "socialism" internally, but when interacting with clients, competitors, and other companies, "capitalism" seems to work better.

Many metrics scale as the 4/3 power of city size, or organization (or indeed, organism, in terms of metabolism and so on).  Economic productivity scales up, but so does crime rate, etc.  Make of that what you will.
Human population density is also one of the best predictors for the statistics of political views within a single culture, too.  You can see this in elections and polls, as the difference in political stance between urban and non-urban areas.

To me, this just means that the appropriate algorithm/approach/ruleset depends on the context.  I like co-operative business models for example for providing services or selling produce; but a regulated competitive market for business in general.  Change the scale, and my "political stance" turns 180°, one could say; but it's just because at different situations, different rules are needed.  And, because situations evolve, rules must evolve too.  Which leads to status quo proponents being the biggest enablers of evil.

Or perhaps the second biggest enablers.  The biggest ones are those who insist that even though in the past, these rules have lead to millions of people being killed either directly or due forced famine or even genocide, this time they will work perfectly and everyone will be happy, if only everyone behaves, thinks, and talks exactly like I say.

It's not like these scammers – be they insurance companies who never intend to fulfill the contract anyway, or uBeam-like bullshit peddlers – are anything new.  They flourish wherever people choose to not do anything about them, or hell, even protect them because they look nice and spout comfortable nonsense, and the harm they do doesn't affect me personally, only those who deserve to be exploited anyway...
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Insurers continue scamming businessowners AROUND THE WORLD!
« Reply #44 on: December 21, 2020, 10:08:59 pm »
My uncle told me that the main function of insurance was social and it was to keep people participating in the economy without fear.

« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 10:22:34 pm by cdev »
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