Insurance as Governance

by Dean Barry, Aaron Doyle

Insurance as Governance is the first major sociological study of the insurance industry. It examines how the industry controls our institutions and daily lives in ways that are largely invisible, and how it thereby functions as a form of government beyond the state. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on industry practices, the work penetrates the complexities of the insurance industry and demonstrates why it is such a powerful and pervasive institution. The authors advance the concept of moral risk as they consider how insurance companies partner with governments and corporations in the negotiation of economic policy. In effect, Insurance as Governance documents liberal theory at work. It offers a major case study of liberal governance beyond the state and explores such larger issues as how insurance is increasingly liberal rather than welfarist in orientation, and how insurance is the vanguard of liberalization in governance throughout postindustrial societies. Wide-ranging in scope and original in approach, the text provides a sophisticated integration of empirical data and theoretical approaches relating to insurance, risk, governance, and security.

384 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2003

Reviews

[Cold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undoubtedly a book worth reading, but I am conflicted on how good it is. Some of the empirical work reveals jaw dropping practices within the industry. Yet I cannot help but question how representative they are. The authors have a zeal for revealing irresponsible insurance professionals.

The book's main argument is something like "states increasingly absolve responsibility in favour of insurance, which they believe to be a form of governance that influences the behaviour of the insureds". But this was barely evaluated.

Insurance companies clearly want to influence behavior. And if they did, it is clearly a form of governance. Yet the intermediate step of establishing the extent to which insurance changes behaviour is glossed over. We can see they put loss control programs in place but do not know how much losses are controlled by them. My own research reveals behaviour change is less prevalent than one might expect.