What I mean by “prison insurance” is paying insurance in the event that you ever get sent to prison.
Samuel Edward Konkin III mentioned it very breifly in the NLM, I dont know whether this is what he meant but even if it wasnt, I think it is worth looking into as its a topic that I dont think has been explored yet.
What are your thoughts on such a concept as Prison Insurance???
If there is a market for it, then it is feasible, but I do not think there is an insurance company willing to take on the risk of someone who would really want or need prison insurance…
Honestly it says to me, if I were an insurer, “Hi, I am planning on breaking the law, if I get arrested and sent to prison, will you be willing to take premiums to be contractually obligated to care for my property, and or family while I am away?”
I do not foresee a business staying in business long that takes such a risk…
its a moral hazard, so unlikely to be a winner.
Absolutly, it is risky, but where there is high risk there is high gain.
It might have to be grey or even black market, but i think it could work. Recreational drugs are illegal, but that doesnt stop it being multi-million dollar business.
If the crime involved “acquiring” money than they could consider taking insurance out. This would be considered in the whole operation and then the insurance would be taken away from the “acquired” money. So obviously if they take insurance they wont get as much as if they dont take insurance out. But if they get caught and go to prison, then they still get something out of the whole operation. Its a win-win situation for someone committing the crime, insurance companies will earn money because no one seeks to get arrested (althought that would have to be considered from an insurance companies point of view, someone could take out insurance and then purposly gets arrested and caught)
If the crime didnt involve money, assualt for example, then the criminal would have to pay out of own pocket (assuming that this is the only crime he is involved in)
(there is obviously the issue of morality of committing crime, but i think it makes for interesting discussion)
Im sure there are plenty of examples of high risk insurance.
“Prison insurance” would be a misnomer. It would not be insurance because the individual can control whether or not he is sent to prison. For it to be insurance, the individual must have no control (such as flood insurance) or you must have no incentive (such as car insurance; no one wants to crash and risk their life for nothing. They would fix your car, but you would be left with nothing more than you started with).
This is precisely why health insurance is such an odd issue.
Recreational drugs are not in the realm of natural law. The State has a hand in making this a lucrative business currently.
So the insurance company knows it’s dealing with thieves? I think the proper personal might be knocking on this insurance companies doors and enacting an investigation on their part in this stealing.
I think the insurance company is active in the crime and are criminals themselves. The insurance company is basically saying, “Go ahead steal, murder, and assault and if you are caught we will provide you with money and the ability to get out of prison and come back to reap your ‘rewards’”. This pushes crime and doesn’t deter crime.
Not all the time, if your business is insuring people that will ultimately cause their own imprisonment, regardless of their attempts to avoid it, you will gain nothing…
The Black Market requires a state to exist, without a state it is just a free market, if you are assuming some criminals will insure others, this already happens in organized crime, it is a matter of fealty and tribute, members of the organization are loyal to their “superiors” in word (no rats) and deed (pay tribute), when they are imprisoned due to organizational function they are taken care of…
This is not a profittable game though, it is a loyalty game, and in recent years it has proven that it can fail…
My point about no insurer taking the risk is easily proven by the amount of people who had flood insurance in New Orleans prior to Katrina…
If the risk is too high, price is prohibitive, business fails in the sector…
Given the present day legal system it’s starting to make sense. You can be sent to jail for “cheating” on your taxes, for “abusing” self defense, for growing a few hemp plants for your personal use and sharing with mates or selling for a profit, for not complying with various pieces of enviromental legislation like shooting starlings eating your crops… of course the chances for an average person of being caught and sent to jail are low but not remote and surely much higher than twenty years ago. Insurance companies around here are starting to offer driver license suspension insurance (ie they’ll pay you a predetermined sum for each day you are left without a license) and apparently it’s working. So if it’s feasible why not?
Another area of potential interest for insurance and very related is “fine insurance”. We all know that the State is much more bent on getting some quick cashish than sending you to jail so fines are booming: in some States you can be fined for running over a pheasant on the road, having rain water collecting in your vases, washing your car or watering the lawn at some given hours, not giving your dog a microchip implant etc. Again the possibility of persecusion is low but not as remote as a few years ago as government entities try to recover some income so this is potentially an even better area of concern for insurance companies. Problem would be marketing it without enraging the high priests of the State…
Im glad someone can see my point. Driver license suspension insurance and fine insurance is something i hadnt thought of, but it sounds another excellent idea.
I agree. I think the simple inherrant nature of this idea means it can work on its own. If someone is in a high earning job and for what ever reason s/he is sent to prison which would lead to her/him getting fired or being asked to leave, then getting insurance would be make complete sense because it would mean s/hes lost her/his income. All so “criminal record insurance” might be another similar idea where you take out insurance for getting a criminal record. Getting a criminal record means your chances of getting a job are severely reduced and so this would also make sense. People with criminal records cant get jobs and so are more likely to lead a criminal life, therefore this type of insurance might even help to reduce crime.
The governement might create some sort of legal Act that would specifically tackle this problem, making sure that it its particularly ambigous so that the government can deem what it sees to be illegal, and at the very least might heavily regulate this type of business. However one way of looking at it, is that Lawyers are protecting the rights of people charged with a crime, some get them off scott free but that doesnt mean to say that what Lawyers are doing is wrong. Similarly what this type of insurance company would be doing would also not be wrong. The insurance company would not help in commiting the crime but is a service for those that are arrested and charged with a crime.
Also the company would have to ensure the public/customers that it is not a secret government agency trying to catch those who are engaging or going to engage in in illegal acts.
If it does enrage the government, then they can either give you a fine, give you a criminal record and/or send you to prison. All of which you can get insurance for…
I’ve counted several posters attempts at explaining to you the problem of moral hazard vis-a-vis insurance. could you point me to where you have responded?
Could you state the moral implications that you feel would cause this business concept to not work.
And has nothing to do with going to prison…
First and foremost you do not tackle the issue that people who KNOW there is a high risk of imprisonment are the only ones that are goingo t need such insurance, and since crime is a choice, they are choosing to be a high risk, and insuring against it…
This is a formula for disaster for an insurance company…
Wrong…
I have a job and a “violent” felonous record, I work for “The Happiest Place on Earth” for that matter, your criminal record has no effect on employment with the exception of government employment (Administration cronies aside), it is more often the attitude of criminals that leads to employment issues than anything else…
By protecting ill gotten gains, which is what the insurance company is essentially doing it is laundering the gains, which is a crime in and of itself, as well as aiding and abetting a criminal…
Except they will RICO act the benefits because you are using a business it relates as organized crime…
The moral hazard created is one of the problems. The other problem is that it would not even be a workable business. It would be impossible to profit as the “insurer”. Read my previous post to see why:
“Prison insurance” would be a misnomer. It would not be insurance because the individual can control whether or not he is sent to prison. For it to be insurance, the individual must have no control (such as flood insurance) or you must have no incentive (such as car insurance; no one wants to crash and risk their life for nothing. They would fix your car, but you would be left with nothing more than you started with).
For one: Justice will be knocking on their door daily. I can quite easily seeing this turn into perceptions of “payoffs to commit crimes”. But if you actually went through previous posts - line by line - and rebutted a person’s argument the discussion wouldn’t turn into, “I’m not going to repeat myself.” And why should I?
its not a question of ethics… moral hazard is if you like, proper jargon, for a concept which has import in fields of insurance and economics etc.
an example of moral hazard.that i just googled.
http://www.ambrosini.us/wordpress/2005/04/neat-example-of-moral-hazard/
The average person in jail is a high time preference, low IQ individual.
Apparently SEK3 was clueless about the problems of moral hazard and adverse selection. Because what’d happen if you offered such a deal is that your only customers would be those likely to commit crimes, who are only further going to be incentivated to commit the usual high time preference, low IQ crime and don’t have much money to pay the premiums.Is it really that difficult to see why this might fail. In fact, as pointed out before, technically it wouldn’t even be insurance.
Another stupid idea for SEK3.