Outside In | US insurer murder a warning as Hongkongers worry about medical bills
City’s situation is not as extreme but the private sector is out of reach for too many and wait times in the public sector can be painfully long
Forever etched on my memory is the story of my ex-wife’s uncle. He had a heart complaint, and all efforts to get life insurance failed, year after year. Eventually, he hit upon on a neat idea: he went into his local betting shop on January 1, and asked for betting odds on him surviving until the following January 1.
The bookie knew him well, and knew of his heart problem, and so he offered poor odds, but at long last this uncle had what he needed: insurance cover for his wife and family against the possibility of his dying from a heart attack in the coming 12 months. Every January 1 for several years after, he repeated his bet, and was happy every time he lost. The loss was no different from the insurance premium he would otherwise have had to pay to an insurer.
The story was for me a potent one because it stripped the professional gloss away from the insurance industry: actuaries are no different from bookies in betting shops, and insurance policies nothing more than gambling.
The tragedy perhaps says most about the ugly and shameful gun culture that blights the United States: there are few places in the world where a bookie – no matter how money-grabbing – would find an argument over an unsettled debt ending with a bullet in the back.
