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Introducing a gun insurance?

2 points by edouard1234567 ↗ HN
An fb friend (or should I say a social neighbor) just posted a comment with what I think is a brilliant idea (I won't mention his name since I'm not sure he wants to be quoted).

He suggested we introduce a gun insurance very similar to the car insurance. I think this is a brillant idea for many reasons. What do you think?

12 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] thread
gregcohn
Can you explain further -- do you mean liability insurance, ie for accidents or injuries to others? Would it be required?
edouard1234567
Yes, the idea would be to mandate all gun owners to pay for liability insurance the same way we do for cars and let the private insurance industry assess risks and calculate premiums.
gregcohn
I think this is incredibly interesting. The most out-of-the-box idea I've heard yet. There are lots of impracticalities, but it deserves to be part of the discussion.

Is it getting traction anywhere?

staunch
What's the point? There's something like 500 unintentional firearm deaths per year. With 100,000,000 million gun owners we're talking about $5/yr or something.

To put that in perspective, every year 25,000 people die from falling.

edouard1234567
I think one should also consider intentional firearm deaths. I might be wrong and the analogy might not be appropriate but high premiums could disuade people at risk from owning a firearm in the first place and maybe prevent some of the intentional violent crimes.
staunch
Insurance doesn't pay for intentional acts and criminals don't buy insurance. Sorry, this idea is ridiculous.
edouard1234567
You're right, it's not very common for an insurance to cover intentional acts. Assume for a second it was possible and assume that most people who buy firearms are not criminals at the time of the purchase and assume this insurance is mandatory like your car liability insurance then maybe high premium for people at risk will deter some of them from buying a firearm and possibly from committing a crime. It also has the benefit of protecting the victims and their families but that's not my main point. The reason I find this idea very interesting is because of its built-in incentive to detect people at risk and deter them from buying a weapon and maybe committing a crime.
edderly
What are you buying for your insurance? With car insurance you're buying protection for yourself against a risk that either you cause an accident or someone else causes an accident that you are involved in.
edouard1234567
I was referring to a liability insurance, if you kill or injure somebody (outside of legitime defense) with your firearm the insurance.
edderly
So who receives the insurance claim? If I shoot my mother in law, does my wife as an only child get a check?
edouard1234567
Yes, your wife or your mother in law if you miss and she's still alive but what I think is more interesting is the built in incentive for the insurance to identify people at risk and charge them with such a high premium that it would deter some of them from buying a firearm and maybe eventually from a committing a deadly crime.
sagacityhappens
i been trying to get an re-insurance co interested in marriage insurance. Any takers?