Insurance industry owes Katrina victims nothing

In his attack on the insurance industry, columnist Daniel
Atherton barely seemed able to restrain his sense of moral
righteousness (“Insurance’s claims give shallow
comfort,” April 10). It’s too bad he was both wrong and
immoral.

Atherton argues that the state needs to intervene to stop the
atrocious profits (about $44 billion) of the insurance industry in
the post-Katrina era.

This argument is premised on altruism, which is a disastrous
policy in every instance. Whether it is self-sacrifice on a
personal level or socialism on a national scale, its very thesis is
to destroy yourself in favor of your neighbor. No nation or person
can survive for long on such a premise.

The only moral decision the insurance industrialists can or
should make is one in their own best interest.

Not by coincidence, this will always be in the interests of
those with whom they trade, since companies can only benefit from
insurance policies that people are willing and able to buy ““
and the people they trade with usually make decisions that are in
their own interest too.

Any intervention by the state violates, primarily, the right of
property. When Atherton exclaims that the state should regulate
industry, he is essentially saying man should decide by fiat what
other men should do with their property. In this sense, property as
such would not exist because ownership implies control over an
object.

Whoever decides what you can do with something exercises
ownership over it to the extent of his regulatory powers.
Essentially, what Atherton is calling for is the dissolution of
property rights in the insurance industry.

What he is calling for is the expropriation of the products of
man’s mind by force. In that sense, he is an advocate of
robbery ““ robbery of man’s right to the products of his
mind.

No man has the right to take by force the products of another
man’s mind, whether it is a Rolls-Royce, a yacht, health care
or flood insurance.

If the insurance industry sees that it is in their best interest
to hike up insurance rates in New Orleans, that is what they should
do. If they decide it is against their interest to even provide
insurance at all in such a high-risk area, it is moral for them to
pull out entirely.

As for the contracts that their customers signed, it is the
customers’ responsibility to read the contracts before
signing them. No amount of tears can change the fact that there are
provisions in some of these contracts that explicitly declare that
floods are not covered ““ and as long as this remains a fact,
the insurance industry should not pay them a dime. As long as the
print is legible, readable, and explicit, its size makes no
difference.

And most despicable was Atherton’s assault on greed. The
passionate pursuit of greater value should never be condemned, and
any system that declares it evil will self-destruct ““ since
it has, in essence, then condemned all man’s greatest
achievements. Greed is among man’s highest virtues. All men
ought to strive to be greedy, to pursue value, monetary or
otherwise, for their own selfish interests.

Badri is a third-year international development studies
student.