-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Adam Shostack wrote:
Many insurance companies with Mutual in their name (Liberty Mutual is large in the Northeastern US) get that from being founded as mutual insurance companies, where you pay to be part of the mutual insurance group, and when you get sick, injured, etc, the group pays money towords your treatment. I think it broke down with increases in mobility. They were implicitly based on reputation capital, and were not highly fraud resistant.
Adam's suggestion of a charity which only pays for the treatment of those who donate thus recreates an old system.
Mutual insurance companies are owned by the people who purchase their policies. The policy holders actually elect the management. As there are no policy holders who own a significant percentage of the policies, the management of the companies do not have much feedback. Surprisingly, they seem to function well. However, these companies are not a thing of the past. As of ten years ago, the mutual life insurance companies managed about half the assets in the life insurance market. Many of them are quite old. The Presbyterian Minister's Fund is the oldest continuous life insurance company in the world. It was founded in 1759. Mutuals are said to be formed when investors can't be found to provide capital for the company. A number of mutuals were formed in the seventies to handle medical liability insurance which commercial companies did not want to handle. (It seems likely that somebody, somewhere, was behaving irrationally. ;-) Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNGLH4JaWtjSmRH/5AQGUDgf/VB1nTOZJqMVN1Rv9uqAydKxcIB3Mgwgj jVaTVLVcDKl6hdhih9go88Wo5H3M4KdXUeUbdef+yqbY8yDxebQim+0Nn78QUOdX 8FSZ+S+CnNbqttGwDkl3lktRubygycKrG9whBIIC0DhnPECXPAYsmG/OXdfRzbNG iPGDfHDN7CtEsohrsC/lTI+3r8FqQ4PJ2n8JTB7BoXEhKmGlKd80YhFuA/98SkDk GcS7eUwlN+E2PsbBUWS9h/gYo2iDGMo5oQgvc/kdLHzPRVw/E8i/PKW0bhYcMJ6X RCrTbBRavphfBWpeMqOsqMPCP7wPmGYuLoTlLYfg3XtnTKvRJDDq7g== =WNjT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----