Hello everyone, welcome to the Mindscape Podcast.

I'm your host, Sean Carroll, and today's topic is Insurance Markets.

Now I know in the history of Mindscape we've talked about the meaning of life, the fundamental

laws of physics, the way that giant philosophical scientific ideas fit together, as well as

some more fun arts and cultural kind of topics.

Compared to our usual fair, insurance markets seem pretty down to earth, maybe not the sexiest

topic depending on what you get interested in.

I get that, but let me tell you, when you dig into what an insurance market is and why

it might not work, it's fascinating.

There's a lot of intellectually interesting things going on here, especially if you care

or are interested in the fundamental workings of capitalism and the market.

So not to sort of spoil too much of the conversation to come, but the basic idea is very simple.

What is insurance?

Insurance is a trade.

You give somebody money now for peace of mind, basically.

For knowing that if something goes terribly wrong, you'll be able to protect yourself, to

cover your debts or whatever it is, depending on the kinds of insurance.

So it's already intellectually interesting because it's trading something right now for

a future thing, which is always kind of an interesting question.

But there's also the question of the market for insurance and how it works and how it's

a sort of counter example to many things that capitalism is supposed to do.

We know that capitalist markets can fail for various reasons.

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