Clash of Titans
(Depiction of the clash of titans, by vvveverka at DeviantArt)
For reasons I’ve discussed here from time to time, letting this pandemic rip is not sustainable. With government failing to make policy changes to protect public health, organizations allowed to shrug off liability for harm done when they allow rampant exposure, and individuals stuck with the burden of the results… is there any way for the pandemic to be reined in?
I can envision one. It involves clashes of titans, probably starting in the USA.
I can envision it because of a huge failure in the 1980s. The second American feminist movement did all it could to get the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution ratified before the deadline specified by Congress. We weren’t able to do it. Most of the noise around the issue came from “the right,” people who opposed equality for women. But as someone who was very much involved when the final push for ratification was happening, I postulate that the political right wing didn’t do us in. Two especially powerful adversaries stood in our way with plenty of money and the clout money buys: the Mormon church and the insurance industry.
Had we only been up against the Mormons and the political right wing, the outcome could have been very different. Anything going up against the insurance industry has one hell of a time trying to prevail.
There are many losers in the let-it-rip pandemic world. Insurers are among them. They won’t fold without a fight.
Actuaries can’t afford to pretend the pandemic is over.
The more a country embraces let-it-rip, the more its life expectancy is falling. That means more people are dying before they pay all the life insurance premiums their insurers expected to collect. It can turn coverage that was supposed to make a profit for the insurer into coverage that inflicts a loss on the company.
The more a country embraces let-it-rip, the more of its population become disabled. Remember, the World Health Organization estimates that 1 of every 10 infections with SARS-CoV-2 results in long term health problems. People who catch the virus multiple times take that chance with each round.
Schools complain that too many students and teachers are absent too often. Businesses complain there aren’t enough workers for their jobs. Governments complain about too many people going from being taxpayers to being on welfare benefits, so more money has to go out from the Treasury while less comes in.
Disability insurers are noticing, too. They expected a certain percentage of policy holders to file a claim. They expected the majority of policy holders to get through the entire term of their coverage without ever becoming so sick or hurt that they would need to claim disability payments. Like the life insurers, they’ve got more claims coming in than they expected. That’s chewing through their money.
Insurers can be aggressive about displacing the cost of a claim onto whoever seems to actually be responsible for causing the claim to happen. Most of us encounter that when we have to file a claim for damage to our cars and the accident wasn’t our fault. Several years ago, neighbors a couple of houses away from us were stuck in a rented house for months after a tree fell on their home. The insurer refused to settle the claim until they wrung the money out of the insurer for the homeowner behind the house, where the tree’s roots had been.
I expect to see insurers start finding ways to wring compensation out of organizations that don’t seriously try to protect people within their sphere of responsibility.
You’re an employer who doesn’t ventilate, doesn’t filter the air and doesn’t require use of high quality face masks (respirators)? Then don’t be surprised if a big insurance company takes you to court over the disability and life insurance claims that spring up from people who get infected on your watch.
You’re a restaurant that behaves like the employer above? Then don’t be surprised if insurers come after you for claims not only from your workers, but also from your customers.
Most individuals don’t have deep pockets to hire armies of lawyers to fight for them in court. It has been easy for businesses and hospitals to brush aside their lawsuits. Insurance companies have deep pockets. They have cultivated protectors in government. They can bury small to medium sized businesses. They can go toe to toe with Fortune 500 companies. Those will be clashes of titans. If I had to place a bet, I would bet the insurance companies will win.
I expect protective measures against the pandemic to blossom eventually, but I don’t expect that to be due to governmental intervention or the goodness of the bosses’ hearts. I expect it to be imposed by insurance companies.
Insurers do a lot that I dislike. They’re already finding ways to avoid covering people for COVID care and long term consequences. But for this, for holding feet to the fire in organizations that have been refusing to take protective measures, I look forward to seeing what they do.