From the same source, Norwich Union "quits unemployment cover over recession risk."
http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=175580&d=340&h=341&f=342
an old problem - as illustrated in private health care insurance. you can only get it if you're healthy...
i'm all for being positive, but the insurance companies in the USA have that country in a most undemocratic grip... i doubt that many people would want to give the insurance (or other financial) industries that amount of power over us...
i don't think every one would see the extension of the income protection industry as beneficial...with good reason it could be seen by some as a protection racket...
confidence wouldn't be high.... people have seen pension funds disappear, unaccountably it seems...and people's dealings with insurance companies are not always positive, even though it is a highly competitive industry - what with obscure get out of paying clauses, and charging most for the highest risk... premiums will be cheapest for those unlikely ever to to be unemployed. eg the ones who don't need it can get it, the ones who need it can't afford it. sickness insurance is another kettle of fish altogether...
and could people afford it...? would it lead to two tier benefits and be socially divisive...? if insurance is not compulsory there will always be a need for a safety net, no change there, and attempts to make it compulsory, eg giving powerful commercial entities with Mammonist ethics life - tax raising powers, quite simply risks revolution.
none of this is new, and the problems are all part of the history of how the NI system arose in the first place...it's also part of the reality that makes public service different from business. steve - no, sorry, who is prof. Mumford?
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