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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

While reading William Safire's column titled "Moral Hazard,"*  which  
introduction relates to the Bear Sterns bailout or financial market  
saver--your choice--this statement stopped me in my eye tracks: "There  
are still those who mutter that burglary insurance discourages people  
from locking their doors, but the idea of all kinds of insurance —  
purchased by individuals or given by government — seems to have caught  
on."

I'm sure that Safire is correct: the concept of insurance, in its  
myriad manifestations, does indeed seem to have caught on. I know  
people, and so do you, who pay thousands of dollars each year to  
"insure" their health, their homes, their lives, their furniture,  
their potential liability. If not now, no doubt there soon will be  
insurance to insure that your insurers pay off on your legitimate  
insurance claims.

While I was raising my daughters, I paid for so-called health  
insurance, even though I already deemed it to be in fact disease  
insurance. I wanted to be sure to be able to take care of any of their  
needs that might arise. Today, I have property insurance on the  
Phoenix house because it is required by the lender; I have vehicular  
insurance because it is required by law and there are a lot of bad  
drivers out there and others who would happily take my property and  
bankrupt me if the opportunity arose.

On Heartwood, there is no insurance of any kind. This is my sanctuary;  
this is where I make my stand; this is where I live my values  
regardless of what the world thinks of me. And yet . . . I know there  
are those who, while visiting, if they stumbled and fell over their  
own feet and cracked their skulls, might well seek a lawyer to help  
them take from me all that I have.

Insurance companies make big profits. They own big buildings in big  
cities. Their CEOs own third homes on the Mediterranean. I don't know  
if they still enjoy the immense tax advantages they acquired back when  
insurance was a new concept and when insurance companies convinced  
politicians that they needed help through tax exemptions to become  
strong enough to help those policy holders who against all odds  
justified their right to a payoff. I do know that insurance is very  
big business in the land of the free.

Beyond the dollar cost, it seems to me that insurance is an aberration  
of modernity. It is proof that we are uncivilized, irresponsible,  
fearful, and probably that there are just too damn many lawyers  
looking for work.

What are your thoughts on the issue of insurance?

*http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06wwln-safire-t.html?ref=magazine