I mean, this is a constant joke in professional circles. If you are hourly billing and you can use your shitty talent to create something in 8 hours that your good talent would create in 1 - it's usually economically beneficial to have the worse employees do the work as it's more profitable overall. Up until the point where you lose the customer - but in this case that's not a concern.

Why? It seems that if premiums are rising relentlessly for one company that the insured will seek out other companies, and hence that one company will "lose the customer".

Or am I missing something?

You may be mishearing the term "excise tax". An excise tax is a tax on any specific good, such as tobacco or gasoline. Those taxes are included in the cost of the good (it just costs more at the pump or on the shelf). Yes, they are typically used to reduce consumption, or to pay for costs associated with consumption (eg roads).

An alternative income source might be luxury taxes. There are a number of luxuries where consumption correlates positively with price - but it would be politically difficult to implement a tax on extravagance.

They're defence contractors now! :joy: