Mutuality and solidarity: Assessing risks and sharing losses

David Wilkie

Research output: Contribution to journalLiterature reviewpeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Mutuality is the principle of private, commerical insurance; individuals enter the pool for sharing losses, and pay according to the best estimate of the risk they bring with them. Solidarity is the sharing of losses with payment according to some other scheme; this is the principle of state social insurance; essential features of solidarity are comprehensiveness and compulsion. Private insurance is subject to the uberrima fides principle, or utmost good faith; each side declares all it knows about the risk. The Disability Discrimination Act requires insurers to justify disability discrimination on the basis of relevant information, acturial, statistical or medical, on which it is reasonable to rely. It could be very damaging to private insurance to abandon uberrima fides. However, although some genetic, information is clearly useful to underwriters, other information may be so general as to be of little use. The way in which mortality rates are assessed is also explained.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1039-1044
Number of pages6
JournalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume352
Issue number1357
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Aug 1997

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