How is this different from any other kind of insurance? If I live in a landlocked, arid country fifty metres above the water table, but I think an extreme weather event is about to occur, what’s wrong with an insurance company insuring me against flood damage?
$135 to look after a domesticated animal for the rest of its natural life is an absolute bargain.
Edit: Not that I mind the downvote, but it’s a legitimate question.
How is this different from any other kind of insurance?
Well, to start:
they haven’t invested the premiums in a long-term portfolio that will be drawn from to pay for future pet care,
they haven’t set up a trust that will insure the fund will be used to pay for pet care in the event the insurance founders are no longer alive,
they have no actuarial derivation of the expected cost of underwriting this insurance (including the economic collapse risk Desertopa keeps bringing up), and
they have no external accreditation or oversight of their ability to honor their obligations.
(Note: the cryonics orgnizations that people keep comparing this to get the opposite result on all these checks.)
For similar reasons, I disapprove of laws requiring owners to buy insurance to cover dog bites by their dog, if and only if it is of a certain breed (pit bull, Rottweiler, etc.).
If other breeds are comparatively harmless, their insurance should simply be less. Breed-neutral insurance laws would also be more responsive than legislatures to tracking signs of risk (such as having an unneutered dog) and newly popular fighting breeds, etc.
I agree, insurance for rare events ought to be cheap.
How is this different from any other kind of insurance? If I live in a landlocked, arid country fifty metres above the water table, but I think an extreme weather event is about to occur, what’s wrong with an insurance company insuring me against flood damage?
$135 to look after a domesticated animal for the rest of its natural life is an absolute bargain.
Edit: Not that I mind the downvote, but it’s a legitimate question.
Well, to start:
they haven’t invested the premiums in a long-term portfolio that will be drawn from to pay for future pet care,
they haven’t set up a trust that will insure the fund will be used to pay for pet care in the event the insurance founders are no longer alive,
they have no actuarial derivation of the expected cost of underwriting this insurance (including the economic collapse risk Desertopa keeps bringing up), and
they have no external accreditation or oversight of their ability to honor their obligations.
(Note: the cryonics orgnizations that people keep comparing this to get the opposite result on all these checks.)
Good answers, one and all, but they all seem to essentially revolve around competence and capacity to deliver.
Hypothetically, if a respected and mainstream insurance company offered a similar sort of service, would you find it as problematic?
Probably not; I would, however, be interested in #3.
Not that I mind the downvote, but it’s a legitimate question.
For similar reasons, I disapprove of laws requiring owners to buy insurance to cover dog bites by their dog, if and only if it is of a certain breed (pit bull, Rottweiler, etc.).
If other breeds are comparatively harmless, their insurance should simply be less. Breed-neutral insurance laws would also be more responsive than legislatures to tracking signs of risk (such as having an unneutered dog) and newly popular fighting breeds, etc.
I agree, insurance for rare events ought to be cheap.