Broken business models
Insurance companies make more money when they deny your claim. As publicly traded companies they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits. It’s no surprise that customers get screwed.
Food companies make more money by making food less healthy. Fresh ingredients are expensive. Adding salt, fat and sugar makes food addictive which is great for profits, but not so great for our growing problem with obesity.
Lawyers drag out a case because they want to bill more hours.
CDNs advertise that they will speed up your website. Making a website smaller will make it load faster, but CDNs also charge by the byte. This leaves them with the temptation to do things that actually hurt performance in order to make more money.
There’s an inherent conflict of interest in each of these business models. How we do fix them? It’s not enough to promise that you’re incorruptible. We’re heard that story before. You have to fix your business model to align your incentives with ours.
How can you design your model so you make more money when you do the right thing?
While this is true, it isn't really the worst part of the insurance business model. It doesn't take too many times filing home or auto claims against your policy for you to realize that your rates are going to up significantly, pretty much forever. So insurance companies essentially train to not even make a claim in the first place, unless it is really bad. And you'll happily adapt to that model because it likely saves you money (in reduced premium payments) in the long run.
As to how to align your business model so that you make money when doing the right thing. That one is much harder. At a high level structuring services around the golden rule (treat people how I'd like to be treated) is a guide to start with.
Great point. The conditioning you describe is very real and a big part of the problem.
While I'll be the first to admit that our health insurance system is flawed, I've been pleasantly surprised to see the golden rule in action at the insurance company where I work. Our medical director's motto is: "If we do the right thing for our members, the finances will all work out in the end." Spending money on preventative care not only keeps our members healthier, but also saves a lot of expensive hospitalizations. It's a win-win situation.
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