The risk of insurance | Orit Tykocinski | TEDxInnsbruck

[motivationbaychannel]

“If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.” – Michele Ruiz

[brianvernaglia]

Good talk. As always, it comes down to people being bad at risk assessment. You should buy insurance in three cases, 1. when the expected payout of the policy exceeds the cost (this is rare to the point of being trivial--every extended warranty on an appliance is a losing proposition), 2. when the result of an event, even if very rare, is sufficiently terrible such that it would financially ruin you or your children if it happened (health insurance, life insurance when you have kids, fire insurance) or 3. when required by law or lender (car insurance or homeowners insurance). 2 and 3 can overlap.

[robertsteinbach]

Having Insurance makes life bearably safe from the deathly anxiety of Murphy's Law. I have anxiety and Illness. In reality insurance just only softens the blow of unfortune events.

[jodycasey]

What a charming informative talk! This was fabulous, I really enjoyed it, thank you!!

[stephnachname]

Never heard of someone thinking insurance will prevent accidents. Everyone thinks it will pay back the losses as good as possible. So making good on losses.

[nHans]

I disagree with most of her claims. (See what I did there? 😜)

I agree with only two things she said:
● Insurance ads and salespeople are pushy, misleading, and unethical.
● Extended warranties are unnecessary and a waste of money.

Where I disagree with her:
● She didn't even mention that insurance policies are deliberately confusing, long, and jargon-filled. It's the biggest reason why people are over-insured. Even a reasonably intelligent and educated person like myself cannot be sure what's covered and for how much.

● Extended warranties apart, her advice to reduce coverage overall is not only misguided, it's wrong. It's always better to be over-insured than under-insured. As an engineer, I strongly believe in redundant backup systems for safety.



As several people have said: *_It's better to have it and not need it, than not have it when you need it._*

● Insurance premiums make people bankrupt? Wrong. More people become bankrupt because of sudden expenses that weren't covered by insurance—but could have been. People who can't afford insurance premiums also can't afford the losses. In America particularly—which lacks universal health care—it's medical expenses.

● I also dispute her claim that uninsured people drive more carefully than insured people. In my experience, it's the opposite. *_Careful_* people have insurance *and* drive carefully. It's not insurance that makes people careless—it's carelessness that makes people not buy insurance and also drive carelessly.

[microchannel]

Great Talk, interesting topic. I've always avoided buying insurance because I figured if a company wants me to buy it, the statistical odds are nothing bad will happen. If the insurance statistics predict a probable bad event, the insurance company wouldn't be offering me a policy.

[tarrySubstance]

Why do we even have insurance? When daily life is unpredictable as it is then insurance feels like a just wearing a helmet but multiple cement bags fall over you from a 100 feet.

[brianthompson]

Insurance protects us from the financial consequences of a loss, but not from the loss itself; that's her point. But please, please do not confuse the importance of health and life insurance with the wildly minor importance of property, e.g. appliance and luggage, insurance, where losses are virtually nothing. The risk here is in conflating the two, as the two sides of the insurance world--property and casualty versus health and life--address enormously different financial consequences.

[louisyoung]

Very interesting and enjoyable talk, thank you! 👏 👏 🙂

[LtKeyser]

Smart woman. Interesting test results. Those guys in the comments thinking it's BS are the easiest targets of these psychological tricks but they would deny it to the death. Again, psychological bias, not intelligence.

[hamryalasad]

In some parts of the world, insurance is paid just to avoid hassle with the authorities. Cos they’ll never show up when sh*t happens and no one will hold them to it.

[peaceful]

I don't know anybody who thinks insurance prevents anything. It's compensation in case bad things happen.

[saind]

Is this like the gun argument?
I would rather have it and not need it, then need it and not have it?

[billmartiniv]

Couldn’t disagree more with this speaker. For the vast majority of insurance purchased, the profit allowed the seller is worth the downside risk of a ruinous financial event that a person can not afford to retain absent wealth. It is similar to paying interest rates on purchases you can’t afford to pay in full. Survey results aside, those who scam others in the sale of insurance are at the margins of the business.

[jameelh]

ياجماعه تكفون كيف اخلي المقطع عربييي 😭😭😭

[MegSulivan]

Insurance will take care of you and your loved ones in the long run.
While Investments will take care of your and your loved ones now and in the immediate future or even longer as you keep investing

[ataraxia]

Insurances are absolute nonsense. You are just betting against the mathematicians of an insurance company, which is doomed to fail.

[niallbrown]

Utter nonsense. Classically someone trying to come across as smarter than they are. There hasn't been a truly revolutionary ted talk in years.

[renel]

That woman does that smack sound thing way too much.