A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal

Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by vikramkr on Friday April 10, 2020 @10:41AM (#22833473)

I also think a lesson people might have learned on the business side is that theres almost no point planning for something like this - how is a small business supposed to have enough cash on hand to make it through something like this? This is just so bad for so many restaurants/small businesses etc that it's not really something you can overcome with some planning if you own a small margin small business

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Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by londons_explore on Friday April 10, 2020 @10:45AM (#22833520)

The same is true of a fire in your small restaurant.

Yet people buy insurance for that.

Pandemic insurance could exist, and a massive fund could be built up over many decades to pay out when a pandemic does occur.

It would be expensive though. If a pandemic occurs every 100 years, and cuts revenue to zero for 6 months, that means the average cost is 0.5% of revenue...

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Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by bigmanwalter on Friday April 10, 2020 @03:14PM (#22836370)

Pandemic insurance doesn't really make sense. Fires are isolated events, and it is incredibly unlikely that every insured business catches fire all at once.

On the other hand, the very nature of a pandemic is that all insured businesses will make their claims at the same time. It's impossible to actually make it work.

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Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by rsync on Friday April 10, 2020 @11:22AM (#22833934)

"Pandemic insurance could exist ..."

Pandemic insurance does exist:

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/w...

"Meanwhile The Times as well as The Guardian reported the estimated payout for the cancelation to be in excess of £100 million (around $123.7 million). AELTC is said to be in the process of putting together the claim."

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Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by LeifCarrotson on Friday April 10, 2020 @10:55AM (#22833635)

Whether pandemic insurance exists or not doesn't change the average cost (except for the insurance company's profit margin). The average cost to society will still be 0.5% even if no one carries insurance for it.

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Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by vikramkr on Friday April 10, 2020 @10:53AM (#22833608)

By your own calculation there that's a really tall order for restaurants to afford, and the damages are also hard to tabulate. For flood or fire you can mitigate your risk and clearly value the damages - how exactly do you tabulate for shutting down a restaurant? Who decides what revenues would have been for a new restaurant?

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Re:A Long Time Until the Economic New Normal by londons_explore on Friday April 10, 2020 @11:33AM (#22834057)

damages could be written into the insurance contract. For example, "During any pandemic period, as defined by WHO, the policyholder may define a single continuous wholly contained subperiod for a claim. A business valuation shall be made of all assets at both the start and end of this subperiod by designated auditor X. The insurance policy shall pay out the difference in valuations."

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