Wanna Bet?

I have never been fond of insurance companies. I recognize them as a necessary evil but if I ever took the time to add up all the money I have spent on insurance as compared to the few paltry claims I've made over the years, I'm pretty sure they are way ahead.

And I understand the whole concept of my betting them that I will suffer a misfortune before I've paid them enough to cover the pay out. What a morbid little past-time that is.

I can even understand why they raise rates or drop your coverage altogether if you make a claim. The odds have changed, after all. And insurance really is nothing more than gambling.

And I even admire insurance salesmen. They have to convince you to make these stupid bets in such a way that we thank them and shake their hand when its over. It's like a woman kissing a rapist good-night when he's done.

What I cannot abide is their abuse of the English language.

Take Life Insurance for example. Shouldn't we be buying Death Insurance? Am I paying them money against the unfortunate circumstance that I might live? I don't think so. I am betting them that I will die before I have made enough payments to cover the amount of money they have to pay out to my wife. I am making a bet that guarantees I will never live to collect it and the only way it pays off big time is to die young. And my wife sits there next to me, across from the agent, saying, "Hon, I think we should do it."

But calling it Life Insurance is absurd. The other one is Health Insurance. Shouldn't it be called Sickness Insurance? We aren't sick people insuring against the inevibility that, someday, everyone gets healthy.

You might argue: who would buy death insurance or sickness insurance? They sound so morbid. It would be like wishing bad luck on yourself. Yet we are still willing to bet with a stranger that we can get sick or die before they want us to.

You might also say: it's just what they call it so what's the difference? Well, I think words mean things. And if we are going to make these absurd bets that are wrapped up in weasely lawyer talk, the least they can do is get the big premise right.

And there is plenty of precedent for it:

• We buy Fire Insurance -- not Nothing is Burning and Everything's O.K. Insurance.
• We buy Flood Insurance -- not Everything's Dry and I Live on a Hill Insurance.
• We buy Accident Insurance -- not I live in a Good Neighborhood and Rarely Drive Anyway Insurance.

By the way, what the hell is Self Insurance? My wife's company is self insured. What do they do, sit around at lunch and bet on a death pool? Who has to pay up when the secretary has to take time off to go to the clinic? Or are the owners just betting each other which employee will be the next to drop from exhaustion?

In recent months I bought two Apple computers and an iPod. I got the insurance (extended warranty) for all three. Which is always an interesting conversation. The salesman just spent a half an hour or so touting the virtues, strengths and reliability of some electronic device. They have convinced you that you cannot live without it and that you are very smart, indeed, for having chosen that product. Then, sometime during the ringing-it-all-up process (once it would be too awkward to back out of the deal), they start telling you how you never know when these things might experience catastrophic failure or how expensive it is to replace a broken hinge or how the weasely manufacturer only trusts their product for 30 days. And then, once again, what a clever shopper you would be to buy the product insurance.

Which is why the insurance racket works. Fear.

I guess all of this makes me a clever coward with a gambling problem.