The reality is that most insurance company will need to be bailed out before long. Pension funds and insurance companies and others have long-term liabilities that are funded with equity and equity-like assets this situation will be like taking the present value of liabilities and looking at the expected returns of the assets that they have to fund their liabilities. They will come up short. What they will have to do is sell assets to make payments or basically slash spending and sell assets. Most insurance companies are more than likely 2 weeks away from running out of liquidity.
On the subject of money, I thought this was great 
Basic strong arm politics as a solution to the outrageous US Federal debt burden that this political fiasco and the resultant bailouts will greatly increase. It might even work, in the sense that China might not complain as much now as they will when the same thing happens 20 years from now, but at that point for no justifiable reason.
“Never let a crisis go to waste”
It used to be that Lloyds Names used to more or less print their own money – most of the time
For as long as I can recall when reading on the subject, the insurance industry has paid out a little under half of its premiums in claims.
Two of the couples with whom I ride motorcycles in Europe have done very well in insurance, in Australia and the US, allowing them basically unlimited time and money by their early sixties. I like to explain to them that observing their lifestyle is why I don’t buy more insurance than absolutely necessary, but that it’s been a good thing because over many years it’s taught me to manage risk the real way, avoiding the need to claim, and that my money to be with them for leisure has come from avoiding them in business.
Traditionally the way the insurance business was run was a balanced book – the idea that over the business cycle you took in roughly the same in premiums as you paid in claims.
You made a profit on the fact you were holding people’s money for a period of time and were able to invest it, much like a bank.
This is of course no longer the case, and there are whole sectors of insurance selling policies that are pretty much impossible to claim on.
Insurances’ business idea is to sell as many policies as possible and pay out to as few claims as possible.
The best thing one can do is to avoid insurances altogether if the risk can be managed internally or there is no legal requirement for an insurance.
I’m 4 and a bit years in to an insurance claim in which their behavior has been absolutely terrible. I would not trust them to behave reasonably, and if they think they can get out of their responsibility I’m sure they will.
Graham wrote:
Force Majeure as an exclusion is a bit ridiculous.
As far as I understand, force majeure in this case is not a stipulated exclusion from coverage, it’s what is happening to the insurance companies themselves. Akin to a run on a bank.
BeechBaby wrote:
She was really frightened stating that most of the companies she represented had days, not months for economic survival.
That is the way companies are run these days. No-one keeps any spare cash – it is ‘inefficient’.
Force Majeure as an exclusion is a bit ridiculous. That’s what I have insurance for – the unexpected. If the only risks were known ones, I might well choose not to buy insurance and mitigate in other ways.
Fuji the only reason I know this is that the UK CEO for Tourism stated that they were disappointed that the insurance companies had taken this stance with its members and that the banks are currently telling customers no leeway on finance, speak to your insurers.
She was really frightened stating that most of the companies she represented had days, not months for economic survival.
