The insurance industry is a commercial prediction market.
It is often an indicator of true honesty, providing there is no government intervention. Governments intervene in insurance/risk markets when they do not like the truth.
I tried to arrange insurance for an obese western expatriate several years ago in an Asian country, and the (western) insurance company wrote a letter back saying the client was morbidly obese and statistically likely to die within 10 years, and they should lose x weight before they could consider having insurance.
I could see prediction markets handing insurance in the future, it could probably get fairer prices but would have to be done right to avoid bad incentives, interesting to think about how that might work.
The clearest example is the state of California preventing insurance companies from increasing annual premium when risks increase. Please understand I have no political opinion about this. As a result, a lot of insurers have completely withdrawn and now its not possible to insure houses properly for many people.
With no government intervention, the price of all fire insurance in California would increase materially to reflect the genuine risk of wildfire damage.
It is often an indicator of true honesty, providing there is no government intervention. Governments intervene in insurance/risk markets when they do not like the truth.
I tried to arrange insurance for an obese western expatriate several years ago in an Asian country, and the (western) insurance company wrote a letter back saying the client was morbidly obese and statistically likely to die within 10 years, and they should lose x weight before they could consider having insurance.