Cubist
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- Shropshire/Herefordshire Border
Black Bart Bartholomew, a notorious Welsh pirate of the 17th Century is often credited with creating the Medical Insurance business we all know today and, in some circles, he was also credited with the claim that the Insurance Companies of his day were the hiding place of a far greater number of pirates and privateers seeking to avoid the gibbet than any crew afloat. These fathers of the Insurance businesses of the world, and their fellows in the Banking industries, have over the years cloaked themselves in respectability whilst fighting rear-guard actions against anyone seeking to regulate or otherwise hold them to account. Whilst much may have been done to clean up these industries they are still little better than gamblers who have always, and always will, stack the decks and and therefore the odds to favour themselves. Today they rely, more so perhaps than at any other time, on the Law of Big Numbers and some occasionally arcane statistical manipulations to ensure that 'the House Always Wins' - Trumps failures in the Casino world and his economic manipulations notwithstanding.
In the context of Period Properties this has translated into the carving/calving? - fatted cow seems apropos somehow - out of segments of insured properties on the basis of their construction with the aims of either reducing the overall risk or, by virtue of creating much smaller potential customer communities, demanding much higher premiums for cover as the inverse of the Law of Big Numbers is that as the market size reduces the risk increases and ergo the reward (premium value) must be much larger. Sadly, the Insurance companies and their products are swiftly becoming just another of the real certainties in Life.
In the context of Period Properties this has translated into the carving/calving? - fatted cow seems apropos somehow - out of segments of insured properties on the basis of their construction with the aims of either reducing the overall risk or, by virtue of creating much smaller potential customer communities, demanding much higher premiums for cover as the inverse of the Law of Big Numbers is that as the market size reduces the risk increases and ergo the reward (premium value) must be much larger. Sadly, the Insurance companies and their products are swiftly becoming just another of the real certainties in Life.