Insurance is a weird beast. Basically, we all band together and put in money so if any of us hits misfortune, the pooled money can be used to help out. It works because typically, most of us do fine, and we can cover the misfortunates.
This is basically what communities do. We take care of each other. We all pitch in, with the expectation that we’ll all be able to fall back on each other should misfortune strike.
The weird part is that when you’re talking insurance, it’s not emotional commitment, it’s financial. And since the insurance companies are for-profit enterprises whose first duty is to their shareholders, not their policyholders, the have incentive to refuse participation to anyone they think might collect, they want to charge premiums as high as possible, and pay out as little as possible. In short, the profit motive directly acts to make them oppose the slightest movement in the direction that insurance was designed to provide: a safety net provided by a mutually interdependent community.
Bizarre stuff. Gotta run. Five more pages of paperwork to fill out…