Re: UK travel insurance


"Mike....." <mikexclothing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4bni5y1mzj4l.1ckwpg2q0o6la$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Following up to Andy Pandy

Who says that's what insurance "should" do?

nobody, but theres a social benefit available.

Then the state should do it, instead of expecting commercial companies to.

Insurance is similar to gambling -

not really, you can make a profit gambling. Only fraudsters do that with
insurance.

Yes, and? The principle is the same, you pay a premium/place a bet, and as a
result you might make a large claim/get a big win.

The fact the the former is used to mitigate a loss for an unfortunate event and
the latter isn't isn't really the issue. From the insurance companies and
bookies POV the financial result is virtually identical.

the insurance company works out the odds of a claim using criteria available
to
them and the premium they quote is based on that (plus overheads etc
obviously).

no one said otherwise, but the quote could just as easily (in fact more
easily) be calculated by just deviding the total risk between the policy
holders. As in national insurance.

Er, yes, NI is a tax, not an insurance. If that's your model, do you want travel
insurance to be based on a percentage of a person's income? Do you want people
who've paid no insurance to be able to claim?

Trying to stop insurance companies using such criteria is like trying to
stop
bookies setting different odds on different horses. Nobody would ever back
outsiders. Similarly low risk people wouldn't bother with insurance if they
have
to pay the same as high risk people.

Wouldnt they? Look at car insurance, the people who skip it are generally
the high risk young who find the premium unaffordable.

Because they usually have no assets if a large claim does hit them.

The lower risk pay
and then suffer the consequences of collisions with the uninsured. Yore
also wrong to think of high risk people, its high risk *categories*, many
in high risk categories are actually low risk individuals, they just look
high risk to insurance statisticians. Do you think a bloke who drives a
Hyundai suddenly gets high risk when he drives a BMW? (well, i'll tell you,
I dont :-) )

The bookie analogy doesnt work BTW. You should only get you losses back
with insurance, theres no scope for honestly making a profit and travellers
dont chooses to be high risk or low risk, so betting on outsiders is
inapplicable.

Where risk assesment as currently practised is excluding people from an
activity theres a case for using the national insurance model so that
everyone can take part and the cost is spread. We have to decide how we
want to be treated when old, do we want to be excluded because its an extra
cost or do we want society as a whole to bear the cost as it does with the
NHS (which has gone from 3 to 7% (or something) of income as we do more and
more) with an ageing society that lives longer and longer its going to be
expensive but theres no point living longer if you cant do anything!

I don't disagree with you - like I said I think the EHIC card idea should be
extended worldwide if possible. But I don't think commercial companies should be
forced to effectively subsidise one group of people from the premiums paid by
others. That's the job of governments.

--
Andy


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