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.